With Byron in Italy 



Uniform with this volume 
Edited by Mrs. McMahax 



FLORENCE IN THE POETRY OF 

THE BROWNINGS 
WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 
Each with over 60 illustrations 

12rao edition net%\AO 

Large-paper edition . ... net 3.75 
Florentine edition 7iet 10.00 



A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers 
CHICAGO 



With Byron in Italy 

Being a Selection of the Poems and Letters of 

Lord Byron 

Which have to do with his Life in Italy from 
1816 to 1823 



Selected and Arranged by 

Anna Benneson McMahan 

Editor of " Florence in the Poetry of the Brownings," 
"With Shelley in Italy," etc. 

With over Sixty Illustrations 
from Photographs 




Chicago 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1906 



LIBITOWV *4 ooNQmss 

TwnOWHM HffUfUfO 

OCT X 1906 



Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1906 

All rights reserved 

Published September 29, 1906 






About two-thirds of the illustrations of this volume are from the photographs 
of Alinari Brothers, Florence. Many of the others have been furnished by friends 
interested in the places celebrated by Byron. 



TO MY FRIENDS 
A. J. C. 

AND 

E. E. K. 



Thou Italy ! lohose ever golden fields ^ 

Plouglid by the sunbeams solely, would suffi.ce 

For the world's granary : . . . . 

Birthplace ofheroes, sanctuary of saints. 

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made 

Her home. 

The Pbophecy of Dantb. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

General Introduction xv 

THE YEARS IS 17, IS 18, IS 19 

Introduction to Byron's Life in Venice 3 

Venice : A Fragment y 

Letter to John Murray o 

Letter to John Murray 2q 

Letter to John Murray 22 

Letter to Thomas Moore 23 

Letter to Thomas Moore 24 

Letter to John Murray 25 

Letter to Thomas Moore 27 

The Lament of Tasso 28 

Letter to John Murray 2S 

Letter to John Murray 3q 

Letter to John Murray 32 

Letter to John Murray 32 

Extract from " Manfred " 3 j. 

Letter to John Murray ^j 

Letter to John Murray ^q 

Letter to Thomas Moore 50 

Letter to John Murray ka 

Extracts from " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," Canto IV . 56 

Letter to John Murray 222 

Extracts from *' Beppo : A Venetian Story " . . . . 112 

Letter to James Wedderburn Webster .... i^>i 
[ vii ] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

Letter to John Murray 122 

Letter to John Murray 124 

Letter to John Murray 126 

Ode on Venice 129 

Letter to Jolin Murray I'M 

Letter to John Murray 130 

Letter to John Murray 139 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Introduction to Byron's Life in Ravenna .... 145 

Stanzas to the Po 149 

Letter to Thomas Moore 151 

Letter to Richard Belgrave Hoppner 152 

Letter to John Murray 153 

The Prophecy of Dante 156 

Letter to John Murray 176 

Letter to John Murray 178 

Letter to John Murray 179 

Letter to Thomas Moore 182 

Trom Byron's Diary 182 

Letter to Thomas Moore 185 

Letter to Thomas Moore 186 

Letter to John Murray 188 

Letter to John Murray 189 

Letter to Jdm Murray 190 

Letter to John Murray 190 

Letter to John Murray 192 

Letter to Thomas Moore 194 

Extract from " Marino Fahero, Doge of Venice" . . . 197 

Extract from " The Two Foseari " 203 

Extract from ''Cain" 206 

[ viii ] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

THE YEARS 1S22 AND 1823 

Introduction to Byron's Life in Pisa, Leghorn, and ^^""^ 

^'^'^''^ ' . . 235 

Prom Byron's " Detached Thoughts " 240 

Letter to John Muriay 041 

Letter to Sir Walter Scott 242 

Letter to John Murray 244 

Letter to Thomas Moore 248 

Letter to John Murray 250 

Letter to John Murray 251 

Letter to Thomas Moore 253 

- Letter to Isaac Disraeli 254 

Letter to Thomas Moore 256 

Letter to John Murray 257 

Letter to Thomas Moore 258 

Extracts from " Don Juan " 

Wanted — A Hero 259 

Things Sweet 262 

The Shipwreck 264 

The Poet 279 

The Twilight Hour 288 

Haidee and Juan 291 

Byron and his Contemporaries 296 

Don Juan Described 299 

Conventional Society 3O4 

Letter to John Murray ^ . 3O7 

Letter to John Hunt 312 

Letter to John Hunt 312 

Letter to Mrs. [? Shelley] 345 

Letter to J. J. Coulmann 34(j 

I^'^^^ 321 

[ix] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Piazzetta at Venice Frontispiece 

Piazza and Cbureh of St Mark 2 

Juliet's Tomb at Verona 8 

Tomb of Torqiiato Tasso, Rome 18 

Tree known as Tasso's Oak, Rome 24 

" The Three Fates," Pitti Gallery, Florence 28 

Mausoleum of the Medici Family, Florence 32 

The Coliseum, Rome 40 

Old Amphitheatre at Tusculum 48 

Monument to Galileo, Florence ♦ 54 

Bridge of Sighs, Venice . . . . " 60 

Bronze Horses on St. Mark's, Venice 62 

Rialto Bridge, Venice 64 

Petrarch's Tomb, Arqua 66 

Church of Santa Croce, Florence 68 

Venus de' Medici, Florence 70 

Castle of Passignano, Lake Trasimeno 72 

Lake Trasimeno, seen from San Savino 74 

Temple of Clitumnus, near Spoleto 76 

Falls at Terni 78 

River Tiber and Milvian Bridge, Rome 80 

Bronze Wolf, Rome 82 

Tomb of Cecilia Metella, Rome 84 

[xi] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pack 

Mount Soracte, near Rome 86 

Column of Phocas (so called) in Roman Eorum 88 

Capitoline Hill, Rome 90 

Grotto of Egeria, near Rome 92 

Tarpeian Rock, Rome 94 

The Laocoon, Vatican Gallery, Rome 96 

The Dying Gaul, Capitoline Museum, Rome 98 

The Pantheon, Rome 100 

Dome of St. Peter's, Rome 102 

Interior of St. Peter's, Rome 104- 

Apollo Belvedere, Vatican Gallery, Rome 106 

Lake Nemi and Town of Nemi 108 

Lake Albano and Castel Gandolfo 110 

Monument to Machiavelli, Plorence 116 

Monument to Alfieri, Florence 120 

Monument to Michel Angelo, Plorence 124< 

A Corner of the Palatine Hill 128 

Trajan's Column, Rome 136 

Pineta at Ravenna 142 

Palazzo Guiccioli at Ravenna 150 

Tomb of Dante, Ravenna 156 

Forest of Olive Trees 164 

" The Last Judgment," by Michel Angelo, Rome .... 172 

Statue of Moses, by Michel Angelo, Rome 180 

Scene in Romagna 188 

Church of St. John and St. Paul, Venice ....... 198 

Country Scene in Italy 208 

Ruins of Adrian's Villa, near Tivoli 218 

Portrait of Byron, by Camuccini 234 

Palazzo Lanfranchi, Pisa 242 

[xii] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Portrait of Byron, by West 252 

Baths of Caracalla at Rome 264 

Komau Eoruin 276 

Yilla Borghese, Rome 286 

Porto Yeuere, Gulf of Spezia 296 

" Aurora," by Guido Reui 304 

Sea-coast near Byrou's House at Albaro (Genoa) .... 312 



[xiii] 



Introduction 



Op the four English poets whose lives are almost as 
closely associated with Italy as with England — 
Browning, Shelley, Byron, Landor — the one 
whose absorption into this land of their adoption is most 
obvious and most complete is Byron. Browning said, 
" Italy is my university '' ; Shelley declared that the inspi- 
ration of his greatest poem was due to the ^'^ vigorous 
awakening of Spring in that divinest climate, and the new 
life with which it drenches the spirits '^ ; Landor settled in 
Florence and said, " Italy is now my country '^ ; but Byron 
more than any of the others became Italianized in habits 
and ideas, entered at once and completely into the associ- 
ations, the history, the thoughts of the Italian people. He 
joined in their political intrigues, was head of one of their 
secret societies, hung out the tricolor flag from his own 
balcony, spoke and wrote the language fluently, was well 
versed in their great literature, planned to write his own 
masterpiece in Italian, and so often made Italy the subject 
of his work that it is hardly saying too much to declare 
that it was through Byron that Englishmen first became 
interested in Italy. 

This is not to ignore that Chaucer had adapted or 
imitated Italian tales, that the Elizabethans had dramatized 
Italian novels, that Milton had followed the Italian manner 
[XV] 



INTRODUCTION 

in his ^^ L^ Allegro^' and " II Peiiscroso^^; but these all stood 
more or less on the outside, while Byron often seems almost 
like an Italian writing in English. When he arrived in 
Italy (November, 1816) he was twenty-eight years old, and 
no man at twenty-eight had ever been more in the public 
eve. He had '^ awaked and found himself famous '^ for one 
poem, had sold in one day 10,000 copies of another, had 
been rated as the liandsomest and berated as the wickedest 
man alive ; he had the rank of lord and the expensive tastes 
of one, but so little money tliat his pockets were always 
empty and his house invaded by bailiffs ; he had made a 
surprising marriage and a still more surprising separation 
within the space of less than thirteen months; he had 
been a rioter in his ancestral hall at Newstead Abbey, a 
dandy in London, an extensive traveller in Spain, Greece, 
and Asia Minor at a time when such journeys were ex- 
tremely unusual; had written about these countries in 
verse which threw the world into raptures and which was 
translated into many languages ; and at all times and in all 
places had attracted an attention greater than that bestowed 
on crowned kings or haloed samts. Ilis contemporaries 
were baffled by this strange and contradictory personality ; 
their criticism was staggered by the effort to appraise his 
work apart from the glamour of that personality. 

But when the centenary of his birth came round (1888), 
the problem had changed its aspect and the question then 
was. Why was Byron ever so popular? In a generation 
which produced Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Scott, 
Landor, Keats, what has Byron to offer in comparison 
with even the least of these? Eortunately that question 
[xvi] 



INTRODUCTION 

does not concern us here. We have lived past the Day of 
Judgment set by Matthew Arnold, and found that neither 
his prophecy of Byron^s supremacy nor Swinburne^s equally 
sure prophecy of oblivion has befallen the poet. Ou the 
Continent, indeed, his reputation is as great as ever, while 
tlie eager welcome given to the new English and American 
editions of his poems proves that the twentieth century 
is ready to renew its acquaintance with a somewhat 
neglected Byron. 

The last and most prolific period of Byron's literary 
composition was the eight years after leaving England, — 
all spent in Italy except the first few months in Switzerland 
and the last few months in Greece. Byron's love for 
Greece and his final devotion of time, purse, thoughts, 
and hfe itself to her liberation are well known. But his 
love for Italy, which was quite as intense, is less generally 
appreciated. The fourth canto of '^ Childe Harold ■" bears 
witness. Let those who will dismiss it as a "versified 
note-book''; nevertheless the Italy there pictured is the 
Italy that first fascinated the imagination of the English 
and American traveller.^ Because w^e in this blase-tourist 
age are somewhat aweary of it and can find plenty of flaws 
in it is no reason for denying its many magnificent pas- 
sages, its sympathy with Italy's skies and lakes and ?eas 
and mountains, its penetration into her inmost spirit, and 
its lyrical power in such passages as the stanzas beginning 
" Rome, my country, city of the soul ! " 

1 " It was the sight of the numerous English travellers following in the 
footsteps of ' Childe Harold ' with Murray's handbook under their arms 
that suggested the first Bsedeker." — Herr Fritz Baedeker in London 
Times, 1889. 

[xvii] 



INTRODUCTION 

Italy's history on its romantic side nowliere, even among 
her own poets, finds more thrilling expression. 

But in a yet deeper and more interior way did Byron's 
removal to Italy become an epoch-making event in his 
poetry and in his life. Immediately on his arrival he 
began to study the Italian writers, especially their writers of 
burlesque, such as Pulci, Casti, Berni, and Ariosto. His 
letters show how quickly he became charmed by Pulci, 
and afterwards wdien he translated two books of Pulci's 
" Morgante Maggiore " he repeatedly announced his con- 
viction that this was the best work he had ever done. 
Soon he adopted the metre and spirit of this poet for an 
original work on a Yenetian subject, calling it " Beppo : A 
Yenetian Story." Other English writers — especially John 
Hookham Erere — had used the same octave stanzas and 
had tried the same mingling of grave and gay in the 
Tuscan humoristic style. But Byron's achievement had 
a richness of execution, a mastery over his material all 
its own. It is doubtful if he himself knew his own power 
for comedy previously ; certain it is that afterwards he 
never abandoned it, and that in this metre and of this 
type are the " Don Juan " and the " Vision of Judgment," 
on which rests his most secure fame. 

Time was when no self-respecting person would mention 
^^Don Juan" in polite society. Even many who would 
quote feelingly 

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 
'T is that I may not weep " 

or 

*' Perhaps the early grave 
Which men weep over was meant to save " ; 
[ xviii ] 



INTRODUCTION 

or who would sing '' Ave Maria, blessed be the hour ^^ of 
'^The Isles of Greece^' did it in entire innocence of their 
indebtedness to the unmentionable poem. It is true that 
there is a great deal in it that one would spare gladlj, both 
from the point of view of morals and of poetic art; but it 
served as a repository for all Byron^s thoughts and feelings 
during several years and was left unfinished with the 
sixteenth canto at the time of his death. It is often too 
sensual, like his own life; too bitter, with rage against 
wrongs suffered by himself; too vindictive, as self-ostracized 
he watched his countrymen from afar and lashed their cant, 
their hypocrisy, their senseless and cruel customs in 
politics and society. No wonder that it gave England 
much offence at the time and that it can never be recom- 
mended for " family reading.-'^ But the wit, the verve, the 
humor, the satire have established it as chief of English 
humorous epics ; in its best parts one of the most quotable 
of poems, the whole is greater than any of its parts. 

In this kind — the mock-heroic — Byron^s place re- 
mains secure. But the mock-heroic, after all, makes too 
little appeal to the liigher nature of mankind to hold an 
enduring place in their hearts. He became easily the 
'Woice-in-chief ^■' of liis generation because his tempera- 
ment was so congenial to the great passions then agitating 
the souls of men. He was the supreme incarnation of its 
romantic ideals, the poet of its revolutionary spirit. In 
these calmer days, when we turn rather to those poets who 
bring us thought, revelation of truth, moral and spiritual 
insight, Byron docs Tiot respond to our call. Some of 
his poetry is magnificent; it compels our admiration, 
[xix] 



INTRODUCTION 

but not the love we feel toward those who give us that 
" breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ^' which it is 
the supreme mission of poetry to convey. 

Beside being a great poet, Byron was a brilliant and 
captivating letter-writer. Saucy, vain, reckless, profligate 
as his letters sometimes are, the fire of his own love 
for freedom, of his intensity of purpose to goad the slave 
to rise up and claim his birthright, burns through them 
no less than through the poems. Whether as author 
writing to publisher, as man of the world to lawyer 
or business agent, as brother to a beloved sister, or as 
friend to friend, there is a dash and piquancy to them 
that rank Byron high among the great letter-writers of 
all time. They have little to say about Italian scenery 
or Italian art (the poems are descriptive, but not the 
letters), but they have much to say about the Italian 
people and their customs, and they show how intimately 
he knew them and how persistently (except in the case 
of a few old friends) he shunned his own countrymen. 

Byron must have sat for his likeness a wearisome num- 
ber of times, judging by the long array of his portraits in 
oil, in miniature, in pencil-sketch, beside two busts. Most 
of these have been reproduced in photogravure in the 
thirteen-volume Murray edition of the Poems and Letters. 
Among them, however, is not included that of the Italian 
painter Yincenzo Camuccini (1773-1844), now in the 
Accademia di San Luca at Eome, reproduced in the 
present volume as frontispiece to the concluding portion, 
— The Years 1822 and 1823. No search either among 
the annals of this painter or in the Byron correspondence 

[XX] 



INTRODUCTION 

reveals the precise time at which he sat for this picture. 
But, to me, this more than any of the others communicates 
that fascination of look and expression of which we hear 
so much and corresponds to the descriptions of his con- 
temporaries, — " small head, covered and friiiged with 
brown curls/' eyes '^ things of light and for light," nose 
"long and straight," "the sweep and shapely curves of 
chin and jaw." We feel that the artist who painted it was 
in sympathy with his subject, and that he has given us 
Byron as he looked while in the Italy that he loved and 
that loved him in return. 

Byron had many a grievance against England, not the 
least of which was its habit of identifying his creations, — 
"Childe Harold," "Cain," "Manfred," "Don Juan," — 
with himself and his own life. Failing to understand him, 
his contemporaries substituted abuse and adoration in 
variously mingled proportions. Nor even now, when time 
has modified both of these feelings and when multitudes of 
critics from Macaulay to Paul E. More and Ernest Hartley 
Coleridge have essayed the task, can it be said that we have 
any adequate analysis of this most complex and puzzling 
character among the English poets. Until a psychologist 
equal to the occasion shall arise, the best means of arriving 
at an individual opinion may be to read side by side the 
poems and the letters during the most mature and most 
productive period of Byron's life, — the years of his Italian 
residence. 

A. B. McM. 
Rome, 1906. 

[xxi] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 







^ 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

VENICE 

INTRODUCTORY 

yf RRIVING in Venice late in the year 1816, 
^jliji this city became at once to Byron the " fairy 
city of his heart.'' Her canals, her gondolas, 
her streets, her bridges, palaces, balconies, piazzas, 
carnivals, pictures, politics, history, — all appealed 
to his poetic imagination and reckless mood of the 
moment. The fragment *' Venice " (p. 7) prob- 
ably was the first poetic expression of his feelings, 
although it lay in manuscript nearly ninety years, to 
he published -first in our own century. 

In almost his first letter to his publisher, John 
Murray, he writes to ask that he will send him an 
English prose work called " View of Italy,'' for the 
sake of securing certain facts for his own poetical 
purposes. He has seen the black veil painted over the 
place where the picture of Marino Faliero should 
appear among the Doges, the Gianfs Staircase, where 
he was crowned and discrowned and decapitated, but 
can find no good account in Venice of that Doge and 
[ 3 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

his conspiracy, or the motives for it. He has deter- 
mined to write a tragedy having the fiery character 
and strange story of Faliero for its subject, — an 
undertaking requiring so much research, however, 
that it was four years before the work xvas completed. 
The story of another Doge, Francis Foscari, and his 
son Jacopo, also appealed to him, although the publi- 
cation of " The Two Foscari " likewise was deferred 
some years. The indignant " Ode to Venice " shows 
how he took to heart her servile condition, while its 
spirited appeal at the close expresses — what is 
revealed also at other times and places — Byron'' s 
admiration of America and American liberty, — 

" be^ler he 
Where the extingidsh\l Spartans still are free, 
III their proud charnel of Thermopylce^ 
Than stagnate on our marsh — or, o'er the deep 
Fly, and one current to the ocean add, 
One spirit to the souls our fathers had. 
One freeman more, America, to thee ! " 

A visit which Byron made to Rome in the spring of 
1817, stopping at Foligno, Ferrara, and Florence on 
the way, resulted in several poems. Ferrara and 
Tasso's prison cell there inspired the fine " Lament 
of Tasso "; the Coliseum and the Palaces of the 
Caesars at Rome suggested one of the choicest pas- 
sages of the third act of " Manfred,'' which he had 
brought to Italy in an unfinished state; the fourth, 
last, and best canto of " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," 
dealing with the feelings and thoughts of this rapid 
[ 4 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

journey, was thrown off at a white heat, a poem of 
one hundred and thirty stanzas, afterwards increased 
to one hundred and eighty-six, being written in thirty- 
three days immediately upon his return to Venice, 
" Beppo,'** Byron^s first attempt in the mock-heroic 
style, of which mention already has been made; " Ma- 
zeppa," perhaps the best known of all his tales in 
verse, and the first four cantos of " Don Juan " also 
belong to the Venice period. 

It is difficult to reconcile the tale of such a long 
and brilliant list of masterpieces, to say nothing of 
his study of the Armenian language, " in order to 
have something craggy to break his mind on,'' with 
the parallel tales reporting his depraved and sen- 
sual life at this time. But such unwilling witnesses 
as his guests, — Shelley, whose admiration of Byron's 
poetry was excessive, Thomas Moore, his enthusiastic 
biographer, 'Hobhouse, his life-long friend, — to say 
nothing of Byron's ozmi letters from Venice, are not 
to be gainsaid. The French traveller, Henri Beyle, 
however, attributes Byron's reputation to English 
stupidity; and after going into raptures over his per- 
sonal charms and into rage over the injustice done 
him, adds: " If at the age of twenty-eight, when he 
can already reproach himself with having written six 
volumes of the finest poetry, it had been possible thor- 
oughly to know the world, he would have been aware 
that in the nineteenth century there is but one alter- 
native, to be a blockhead or a monster. . . . Were 
[ 5 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I in his place, I would pass myself off as dead, and 
commence a new life as Mr. Smith, a worthy merchant 
of Lima.'* 

So long as Byron remained in England he had 
refused to accept any pay for his writings, feeling 
that his position as a lord and a gentleman would he 
compromised by the acceptance of money. But hav- 
ing once reconciled himself to a contrary position, he 
soon becojnes quite a grasping man-of -business, and 
will take nothing less than the highest prices for his 
wares. 

This decision is worth more than a passing mention, 
because for the first time in the history of English 
authorship a nobleman became brave enough to con- 
fess himself an author by profession. Authors of 
noble, even of royal rank, had written and published, 
but they had held themselves aloof from anything so 
sordid as money compensation. In England, Byron 
had given away his copyrights to impecunious friends, 
even while borrowing money for his own needs at 
extortionate terms from London usurers. In now 
deciding that he might and would accept the strong 
and steady stream of wealth pouring in from the sale 
of his works, and apply it to his own use in living 
according to his rank, he was acting in opposition 
to the prejudices of his order and to the sentiment 
of all English society. His long hesitation and pain 
preceding seem almost la^ighable now, but they serve 
to mark the great change of mental attitude in the 
[ 6 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

last hundred years. Murray^s list of payments to 
the poet during the -first five years of his Italian resi- 
dence foots up to nearly $63,000. He spent ^ how- 
ever^ as royally as he earned^ and in Italy^ as later 
in Greece, a very large proportion of this amount 
'tvas devoted to the cause of the liberty of the people. 

VENICE 

A FRAGMENT 

' T IS midnight — but it is not dark 
Within thy spacious place, St. Mark ! 
The Liglits within, the Lamps without, 
Shine above the revel rout. 
The brazen Steeds are glittering o^er 
The holy building's massy door, 
Glittering with their collars of gold, 
The goodly work of the days of old — 
And the winged Lion stern and solemn 
Erowns from the height of his hoary column, 
Eacing the palace in which doth lodge 
The ocean-city's dreaded Doge. 
The palace is proud — but near it lies, 
Divided by the ' Bridge of Sighs,' 
The drearv dwellinj^ where the State 
Enchains the captives of their hate : 
These — they perish or they pine ; 
But which their doom may none divine : 
!NLany have pass 'd that Arch of pain. 
But none retraced their steps again. 
[ 7 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

It is a* princely colonnade ! 
And wrought around a princely place. 
When that vast edifice displayed 
Looks with its venerable face 
Over the far and subject sea, 
Which makes the fearless isles so free ! 
And ■'t is a strange and noble pile, 
Pillar'd into many an aisle : 
Every pillar fair to see, 
Marble — jasper — and porj^hyry — 
The church of St. Mark — which stands hard by 
With fretted pinnacles on high. 
And cupola and minaret ; 
More like the mosque of orient lands. 
Than the fanes wherein we pray. 
And Mary's blessed likeness stands. 
Venice, December 6, 1816.1 

TO JOHN MUREAY 

Venice, November 25, 1816. 
Dear Sir, — It is some months since I have heard from 
or of you — I think, not since I left Diodati. From Milan 
I wrote once or twice ; but have been here some little time, 
and intend to pass the winter without removing. I was 
much pleased with the Lago di Garda, and with Yerona, 
particularly the amphitheatre, and a sarcophagus in a Con- 
vent garden, which they show as Juliet's : they insist on 

^ First publislicd in 1901, from a manuscript in possession of Mr. 
Murray, grandson of Byron 's publisher. 

[ 8 ] 



I.? 



«1 a 



1^ 
2 ^ 




THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

the truth of her history. Since my arrival at Venice, the 
lady of the Austrian governor told me that between Verona 
and Vicenza there are still ruins of the castle of the Mon- 
teccJii, and a chapel once appertaining to the Capulets. 
Romeo seems to have been of Vicenza by the tradition; 
but I was a good deal surprised to find so firm a faith in 
Bandello 's novel, which seems really to have been founded 
on a fact. 

Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected 
much. It is one of those places which I know before I 
see them, and has always haunted me the most after the 
East. I like the gloomy gaiety of their gondolas, and the 
silence of their canals. I do not even dislike the evident 
decay of the city, though I regret the singularity of its 
vanished costume ; however, there is much left still ; the 
Carnival, too, is coming. 

St. Mark's, and indeed Venice, is most alive at night. 
The theatres are not open till nine, and the society is 
proportionably late. All this is to my taste ; but most of 
your countrymen miss and regret the rattle of hackney 
coaches, without which they can't sleep. 

I have got remarkably good apartments in a private 
house : I see something of the inhabitants (having had a 
good many letters to some of them) : I have got my gon- 
dola; I read a little, and luckily could speak Italian (more 
fluently though than accurately) long ago. I am studying, 
out of curiosity, the Venetian dialect, wliich is very naive, 
and soft, and pecuHar, though not at all classical ; I go out 
frequently, and am in very good contentment. 

The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of 
[ 9 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Madame the Countess d^ Albrizzi^ whom I know) is, without 
exception, to my mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human 
conceptions, and far beyond my ideas of human execution. 

In this beloved marble view 

Above the works and thoughts of Man, 
What Nature could, but would not, do, 

And Beauty and Canova can ! 
Beyond Imagination's power. 

Beyond the Bard's defeated art, 
With Immortality her dower, 

Behold the Helen of the heart ! 

The general race of women appear to be handsome ; but 
in Italy, as on almost all the Continent, the highest orders 
are by no means a well-looking generation, and indeed 
reckoned by their countrymen very much otherwise. Some 
are exceptions, but most of them as ugly as Virtue 
herself. 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Venice, February 15, 1817. 

I have been uneasy because Mr. Hobliouse told me that 
his letter or preface ^ was to be addressed to me. Now, he 
and I are friends of many years ; I have many obligations 
to him, and he none to me which have not been cancelled 
and more than repaid; but Mr. G[ifFord] and I are friends 
also, and he has moreover been literarily so, through thick 

* " Letters written by an Englishman resident at Paris during the last 
reign of Napoleon," by John Hobliouse. 

[ 10 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

and thill, in despite of difference of years, morals, habits, 
and even politics, which List wouhl, I believe, if they were 
in heaveji, divide the Trinity; and therefore I feel in a 
very awkward situation between the two, Mr. G. and my 
friend IL, and can only wish that they had no dilferences, 
or that such as they have were accommodated. The answer 
I have not seen, for — it is odd enougli for people so inti- 
mate — but Mr. H. and I are very sparing of our literary 
confidences. For example, the other day he wished to 
have a MS. of tlie 3*^ canto to read over to his brother, 
etc., which was refused ; — and I have never seen his jour- 
nals, nor he mine — (I only kept the short one of the 
mountains for my sister) — nor do I think that hardly 
ever he or I saw any of our own productions previous to 
their publication. 

The article in the E[dinhiTgh'\ ]i[evie7v] on Coleridge I 
have not seen ; but whether I am attacked in it or not, or 
in any other of the same journal, I shall never think ill of 
Mr. Jeffrey on that account, nor forget that his conduct 
towards me has been certainly most handsome during the 
last four or more years. 

I forgot to mention to you tliat a kind of Poem ^ in dia- 
logue (in blank verse) or drama, from which " The Incan- 
tation '' 2 is an extract, begun last summer in Switzerland, 
is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, meta- 
physical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons 
— but two or three — are spirits of the earth and air, or 

1 "Manfred." 

2 The " luoantation" had been published with "The Prisoner of 
Chillon " the year previous. 

[ 11 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of 
magician^ who is tormented by a species of remorse, the 
cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about 
invoking these spirits, which appear to him, and are of no 
use ; he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle 
in, propria persona, to evocate a ghost, which appears, and 
gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer ; and in 
the 3^ act he is found by his attendants dying in a tower 
where he studied his art. You may perceive by this out- 
line that I have no great opinion of this piece of phantasy : 
but I have at least rendered it quite impossible for the 
stage, for which my intercourse with D[rury] Lane has 
given me the greatest contempt. 

I have not even copied it off, and feel too lazy at present 
to attempt the whole ; but when I have, I will send it you, 
and you may either throw it into the fire or not. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Venice, February 25, 1817. 
• • • . • . 

P. S. — Remember me to Mr. G[iffor]d. I have not 
received your parcel or parcels. Look into Moore^s 
(Dr. Moore's) View of Italy for me; in one of the 
volumes you will find an account of the Doge Valiere (it 
ought to be Falieri) and his conspiracy, or the motives of 
it. Get it transcribed for me, and send it in a letter to me 
soou. I want it, and cannot find so good an account of 
that business here; though the veiled portrait, and the 
place where he was once crowned, and afterwards decapi- 
tated, still exist and are shown. I have searched all their 

[ 12 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

histories ; but the policy of the old Aristocracy made their 
writers silent on his motives, which were a private griev- 
ance against one of the Patricians. 

I mean to write a tragedy upon the subject, which ap- 
pears to me very dramatic ; an old man, jealous, and con- 
spiring against the state of which he was the actually 
reigning Chief. The last circumstance makes it tlie most 
remarkable and only fact of the kind in all history of all 
nations. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Venice, February 28, 1817. 

And this is your month of going to press — by the 
body of Diana ! (a Yenetian oath), I feel as anxious — 
but not fearful for you — as if it were myself coming out 
in a work of humour, which would, you know, be the 
antipodes of all my previous publications. I don't think 
you have anything to dread but your own reputation. 
You must keep up to that. As you never showed me 
a line of your work, I do not even know your measure; 
but you must send me a copy by Murray forthwith, and 
then you shall hear what I think. I dare say you are 
in a pucker. Of all authors, you are the only really 
modest one I ever met with, — Avhich would sound oddly 
enough to those who recollect your morals when you were 
young — that is, when you were extremely young — 
I don't mean to stigmatise you either with years or 
morality. 

I believe I told you that the E\dinhufgh'\ R\eview\ 

[ 13 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

had attacked me, in an article on Coleridge (I have 
not seen it) — '' Et tu, Jeffrey ?" — '' there is nothing 
but roguery in villanous man/^ But I absolve him of all 
attacks, present and future ; for I think he had already 
pushed his clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and 
I shall always think well of him. I only wonder he did 
not begin before, as my domestic destruction was a fine 
opening for all the world, of which all who could did 
well to avail themselves. 

If I live ten years longer, you will see, however, that 
it is not over with me — I don't mean in literature, for 
that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, 
I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I 
shall do something or other — the times and fortune per- 
mitting — that, " like the cosmogony, or creation of the 
world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages." But I 
doubt whether my constitution will hold out. I have, 
at intervals, exorcised it most devilishly. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Venice, March 25, 1817. 
• • • . • . 

I have not the least idea where I am going, nor what 

I am to do. I wished to have gone to Home; bat at 

present it is pestilent with English, — a parcel of staring 

boobies, who go about gaping and wishing to be at once 

cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool who travels 

now in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept 

home again. In two or three years the first rush will be 

over, and the Continent will be roomy and agreeable. 

[ 14 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

I stayed at Venice chiefly because it is not one of 
their ''dens of thieves'"; and here they but pause and 
pass. In Switzerland it was really noxious. Luckily, I 
was early, and had got the prettiest plnce on all the 
Lake before they were quickened into motion with the 
rest of the reptiles. But they crossed me everywhere. 
I met a family of children and old women half-way up 
the Wengen Alp (by the Jangfrau) upon mules, some of 
them too old and others too young to be the least aware 
of what they saw. 

By the way, I think the Jungfrau, and all that region 
of Alps, which I traversed in September — going to the 
very top of the Wengen, which is not the highest (the 
Jungfrau itself is inaccessible) but the best point of view 
— much finer than Mont-Blanc and Charaouni, or the 
Simplon. I kept a journal of the whole for my sister 
Augusta, part of which she copied and let Murray see. 

I wrote a sort of mad Drama, for the sake of intro- 
ducing the Alpine scenery in description : and this I sent 
lately to Murray. Almost all the dram. pers. are spirits, 
ghosts, or magicians, and the scene is in the Alps and the 
other world, so you may suppose what a Bedlam tragedy 
it must be : make him show it you. I sent him all three 
acts piecemeal, by the post, and suppose they have 
arrived. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Venice, March 25, 1817. 
Dear Sir, —- Your letter and enclosure are safe ; but 
"English gentlemen'' are very rare — at least in Venice. 
[ 15 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I doubt whether there are at present any, save the Consul ^ 
and vice-Consul, with neither of whom I have the slightest 
acquaintance. Tlie moment I can pounce upon a witness, 
I will send the deed properly signed : but must he neces- 
sarily be genteel? Would not a servant or a merchant 
do ? Venice is not a place where the English are grega- 
rious ; their pigeon-houses are Florence, Naples, Eome, etc. ; 
and to tell you the truth, this was one reason why I staid 
here — till the season of the purgation of Eome from 
these people — which is infested with them at this time — 
should arrive. Besides, I abhor the nation, and the nation 
me; it is impossible for me to describe my own sensation 
on that point, but it may suffice to say, that, if I met with 
any of the race in the beautiful parts of Switzerland, the 
most distant glimpse or aspect of them poisoned the whole 
scene, and I do not choose to have the Pantheon, and St. 
Peter's, and the Capitol, spoiled for me too. This feeling 
may be probably owing to recent events, and the destruc- 
tion with which my moral Clytemnestra ^ hewed me down ; 
but it does not exist the less, and while it exists, I shall 
conceal it as little as any other. . . . 

Some weeks ago I wrote to you my acknowledgments 
of W [alter] S[cott]'s article. Now I know it to be his, 
it cannot add to my good opinion of him, but it adds to 
that of myself, lie, and Gifford, and Moore, are the only 
regulars I ever knew who had nothing of the Garrison 
about their manner : no nonsense, nor affectations, look 

1 Byron afterwards became intimate with this consul, Richard Hoppner, 
and used to read to him his poems in manuscript. 

2 Lady Byron, the wife from whom he had separated shortly before 
leaving England. 

[ 16 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

you ! As for tlie rest whom I have known, there was 
always more or less of the author about them — the pen 
peeping from behind the ear, and the thumbs a little inky, 
or so. 

With regard to the " witch drama/' I sent all the three 
acts by post, week after week, within this last month. I 
repeat that I have not an idea if it is good or bad. If 
bad, it must, on no account, be risked in publication; if 
good, it is at your service. I value it at three hundred 
guineas, or less, if you like it. Perhaps, if published, the 
best way will be to add it to your winter volume, and not 
publish separately. The price will show you I don't pique 
myself upon it ; so speak out. You may put it in the fire, 
if you like, and Gifford ^ donH like. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Venice, April 11, 1817. 
• »•••• 

I hear nothing — know nothing. You may easily sup- 
pose that the English don't seek me, and I avoid them. 
To be sure, there are but few or none here, save passen- 
gers. Florence and Naples are their Margate and Ptams- 
gate, and much the same sort of company too, by all 
accounts, — which hurts us among the Italians. 

I want to hear of Lalla Rookh — are you out ? Death 
and fiends ! why don't you tell me where you are, what 
you are, and how you are? I shall go to Bologna by 

^ Gifford, editor of Quarterly Review, was the " reader " to whom 
Murray submitted Byron's manuscripts. 
2 [ 17 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Ferrara, instead of Mantua : because I would rather see 
the cell where they caged Tasso,^ and where he became 
mad and . . . , than his own MSS. at Modena^ or the 
Mantuan birthjjlace of that harmonious plagiary and mis- 
erable flatterer^^ whose cursed hexameters were drilled into 
me at Harrow. I saw Verona and Vicenza on my way 
here — Padua too. 

I go alone, — but alone, because I mean to return here. 
I only want to see Eome. I have not the least curiosity 
about Florence^ though I must see it for the sake of the 
Yenus, etc., etc. ; and I wish also to see the Fall of Terrii. 
I think to return to Yenice by Ravenna and Eimini, of 
both of which I mean to take notes for Leigh Hunt, who 
will be glad to hear of the scenery of his Poem.^ There 
was a devil of a review of him in the (Quarterly a year 
ago, which he answered. All answers are imprudent : but, 
to be sure, poetical flesh and blood must have the last 
word — that ^s certain. I thought, and think, very highly 
of his Poem ; but I warned him of the row his favourite 
antique phraseology would bring him into. 



TI-IE LAMENT OP TASSO 

At Eerrara in the Library, are preserved the original 
MSS. of Tasso^s Gerusalemme and of Guarini^s Pastor 
Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto ; 

1 Tasso [1544-1595] Avas imprisoned by Alfonso II. as a lunatic in tlie 
Hospital of Sant' Anna at Ferrara, from March, 1579, to July, 1586. 

2 Compare " Childe Ilai-okl," IV, stanza Ixxv. 
8 "The Stoiy of Rimini." 

[ 18 ] 



rpOMB of Torquato Tasso, in Convent of S. Oiiofri 
Rome. Statue bv De Fabris. 



teas' 



■^— X o R Q V A T O TASSO 




ri ' . f , i 







*" Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! 7 was his 
In life and death to he the mai'k lohere Wrong 
Aint'd loith her poison d arroivs, fmt to miss/' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza xxxix, p, 69. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

and the inkstand and cliair, the tomb and the house of 
the latter. But^ as misfortune has a greater interest for 
posterity, and little or none for the cotemporarj, the cell 
where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna 
attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or tlie 
monument of Ariosto — at least it had this effect on me. 
There are two inscriptions^, one on the outer gate, the 
second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder 
and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much 
decayed, and depopulated : the castle still exists entire ; 
and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were be- 
headed, according to the annal of Gibbon. 

I 

Long years ! — It tries the thrilling frame to bear. 
And eagle-spirit of a Child of Song, 
Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong ; 
Imputed madness, prison^ solitude. 
And the mind's canker in its savage mood, 
When the impatient thirst of light and air 
Parches the heart ; and the abhorred grate, 
Marring the sunbeams w^ith its hideous shade. 
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain 
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain. 
And bare, at once. Captivity displayed 
Stands scoffing tlirough the never-opeuM gate. 
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day. 
And tasteless food, wdiich I have eat alone 
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone ; 
And I can banquet like a beast of prey, 
[ 19 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave 

Which is my lair, and — it may be — my grave.^ 

All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, 

But must be borne. I stoop not to despair; 

For I have battled with mine agony. 

And made me wings wherewith to overfly 

The narrow circus of my dungeon wall. 

And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall ; 

And revelFd among men and things divine. 

And pourM my spirit over Palestine, 

In honour of the sacred war for Him, 

The God who was on earth and is in heaven. 

For he hath strengthenM me in heart and limb. 

That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, 

I have employed my penance to record 

How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. 

II 

But this is o'er, my pleasant task is done : '^ — 
My long-sustaining friend of many years ! 
If I do blot thy final page with tears. 
Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me none. 
But thou, my young creation ! my souFs child ! 
Which ever playing round me came and smiled, 
And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, 
Thou too art gone — and so is my delight : 
And therefore do I weep and inly bleed 
With this last bruise upon a broken reed. 

^ Tasso was released after seven years of imprisonment. 
2 The writing of " Jerusalem Delivered." 

[ 20 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Thou too art ended — what is left me now ? 

For I have anguish yet to bear — and how ? 

I know not that — but in the innate force 

Of my own spirit shall be found resource. 

1 have not sunk, for I had no remorse. 

Nor cause for such : they calFd me mad — and why ? 

Oh Leonora ! wilt not thou reply ? ^ 

I was indeed delirious in my heart 

To lift my love so lofty as thou art ; 

But still my frenzy was not of the mind ; 

I knew my fault, and feel my punishment 

Not less because I suffer it unbent. 

That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind. 

Hath been the sin which shuts me from mankind ; 

But let them, go, or torture as they will. 

My heart can multiply thine image still ; 

Successful love may sate itself away. 

The wretched are the faithful, \ is their fate 

To have all feeling save the one decay, 

And every passion into one dilate, 

As rapid rivers into ocean pour ; 

But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. 

Ill 

Above me, hark ! the long and maniac cry 

Of minds and bodies in captivity. 

And hark ! the lash and the increasing howl, 

^ Leonora d'Este, sister of Alfonso, by whom Tasso was imprisoned. 
The belief that his punishment was because of love for the Princess Leonora 
is no longer accepted. 

[ 21 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And the half-inarticuLite blasphemy ! 

There be some here with worse than frenzy foul, 

Some who do still goad on the o^er-lubour'd mind, 

And dim the little liglit that ^s left behind 

With needless torture, as their tyrant will 

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill. 

With tliese and w^ith their victims am I classM, 

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have pass'd ; 

■'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close : 

So let it be, for then I shall repose. 

IV 

I have been patient, let me be so yet ; 
1 had forgotten half I would forget, 
But it revives — Oh ! would it were my lot 
To be forc^etful as I am fors^ot ! 
Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell 
In this vast lazar-house of many woes ? 
Where laughter is not mirth, nor tliought the mind. 
Nor words a language, nor e^en men mankind ; 
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows. 
And each is tortured in his separate hell — 
For we are crowded in our solitudes — 
Many, but each divided by the wall 
Which echoes Madness in her babbHng moods ; 
While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call — 
None ! save that One, the veriest wTetch of all, 
Who was not made to be tlie mate of these. 
Nor bound between Distraction and Disease. 
Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here ? 
[ 22 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Who have debased me in tlie minds of men, 

Debarring me the usage of my own, 

Blighting my life in best of its career, 

Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear? 

Would I not pay them back these pangs again. 

And teach them inward Sorrow^s stilled groan ? 

The struggle to be calm, and cold distress 

Which undermines our Stoical success ? 

No ! still too proud to be vindictive, I 

Have pardonM princes' insults and would die. 

Yes, Sister of my Sovereign ! for thy sake 

I weed all bitterness from out my breast, 

It hath no business where thou art a guest ; 

Thy brother hates — but I can not detest ; 

Thou pitiest not — but I can not forsake. 

V 

Look on a love which knows not to despair. 
But all unquench'd Is still my better part. 
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart 
As dwells the gatherM lightning in its cloud, 
EncompassM with its dark and rolling shroud. 
Till struck, — forth flies the all-ethereal dart ! 
And thus at the collision of thy name 
The vivid thought still flashes through my frame. 
And for a moment all things as they were 
Plit by me ; — they are gone — I am the same. 
And yet my love without ambition grew ; 
I knew thy state, my station, and I knevi^ 
A princess was no love-mate for a bard ; 
[ 23 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I told it not, I breathed it not, it was 
Sufficient to itself, its own reward ; 
And if my eyes reveaFd it, they, alas ! 
Were punished by the silentness of thine. 
And yet I did not venture to repine. 
Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine, 
Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around 
HallowM and meekly kissed the saintly ground ; 
Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love 
Hath robed thee with a glory, and arrayed 
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismayM — - 
Oh ! not dismajM — but awed, like One above ; 
And in that sweet severity there was 
A something which all softness did surpass — 
I know not how — thy genius master^ mine — 
My star stood still before thee : — if it were 
Presumptuous thus to love without design, 
That sad fatality hath cost me dear ; 
But thou art dearest still, and I should be • 
Fit for this cell which v/rongs me — but for t//ee. 
The very love which locked me to my chain 
Hath lightenM half its weight ; and for the rest, 
Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain, 
And look to thee with undivided breast, 
And foil the ingenuity of Pain. 

VI 

It is no marvel ; from my very birth 
My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade 
And mingle with whatever I saw on earth. 
[ 24 ] 




w ^ 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Of objects all inanimate I made 
Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, 
And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise. 
Where I did lay me down within the shade 
Of waving trees, and dreamM uncounted hours. 
Though I was chid for wandering; and the Wise 
Shook their white aged heads o^er me, and said 
Of such materials wretched men were made, 
And such a truant boy would end in woe, 
And that the only lesson was a blow ; — 
And then they smote me, and I did not weep, 
But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt 
EeturnM and wept alone, and dreamed again 
The visions which arise without a sleep. 
And with my years my soul began to pant 
With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain ; 
And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, 
But undefined and wandering, till the day 
I found the thing I sought — and that was thee. 
And then I lost my being all to be 
AbsorbM in thine; the world was past away. 
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me ! 

VII 

I loved all Solitude ; but little thought 
To spend I know not wdiat of life, remote 
From all communion w^ith existence, save 
The maniac and his tyrant. Had I been 
Their fellow, many years ere this had seen 
My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave, — 
[ 25 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

But who hath seen me writhe or heard me rave? 
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more 
Than the wreckM sailor on his desert shore; 
The world is all before him — mine is here, 
Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier. 
What though he perisli, he may lift his eye 
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky — 
I will not raise my own in such reproof^ 
Although 'i is clouded by my dungeon roof. 

VIII 

Yet do I feel at times my mind decline. 
But with a sense of its decay : — I see 
Unwonted lights along my prison shine, 
And a strange demon, wlio is vexing me 
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below 
The feeling of the healthful and the free ; 
But much to One, who long hath suffered so, 
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place. 
And all that may be borne, or can debase. 
I thought mine enemies had been but Man, 
But Spirits may be leagued with tliem — all Earth 
Abandons, Heaven forgets me ; in the dearth 
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can, 
It may be, tempt me further, and prevail 
Against the outworn creature they assail. 
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved 
Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved? 
Because I loved what not to love, and see. 
Was more or less than mortal and than me. 
[ 26 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

IX 

I once Vv'iis quick in feeling — that is o^er; 
My scars are callous^ or I should have dash'd 
Mj brain against these bars^ as the sun flashed 
In mockery through them. If I bear and bore 
The much I have recounted, and the more 
Which hath no words, ^t is that I would not die 
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie 
Wiiich snared me here, and with the brand of shame 
Stamped Madness deep into my memory, 
And woo Compassion to a blighted name, 
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. 
No — it shall be immortal ! and I make 
A future temple of my present cell. 
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake. 
While thou, Ferrara ! when no longer dwell 
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down. 
And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls,— 
A poet's wreath shall bo thine only crown, 
A poet^s dungeon thy most far renown. 
While strangers wonder o^er thy unpeopled walls ! 
And thou, Leonora ! thou — who wert ashamed 
That such as I could love, who blusli^l to hear 
To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear — 
Go ! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed 
By grief, years, weariness — and it may be 
A taint of that he would impute to me — 
From long infection of a den like this. 
Where tlie mind rots congenial with the abyss, 
[ 27 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Adores thee still ; — and add, that when the towers 

And battlements which guard his joyous hours 

Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot. 

Or left untended in a dull repose. 

This — this shall be a consecrated spot ! 

But Thou — when all that Birth and Beauty throws 

Of magic round thee is extinct — shalt have 

One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave. 

No power in death can tear our names apart. 

As none in life could rend thee from my heart. 

Yes, Leonora ! it shall be our fate 

To be entwined for ever — but too late ! 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Venice, April 14, 1817. 

To-day, or rather yesterday, for it is past midnight, I 
have been np to the battlements of the highest tower in 
Yenice, and seen it and its viev/, in all the glory of a clear 
Italian sky. I also went over the Manfrini Palace, famous 
for its pictures. Amongst them, there is a portrait of 
Ariosto by Titian ^ surpassing all my anticipation of the 
power of painting or human expression : it is the poetry 
of portrait, and the portrait of poetry. There was also one 
of some learned lady, centuries old, whose name I forget, 
but whose features must always be remembered. I never 
saw greater beauty, or sweetness, or wisdom : — it is the 
kind of face to go mad for, because it cannot walk out of 
its frame. There is also a famous dead Christ and live apos- 
tles, for which Buonaparte offered in vain irve thousand 
[ 28 ] 



IHE THREE FATES " — formerly attributed to Michel 
Angclo. In the Pitti Gallery, Florence. 




■ See Letter to John Murray, p. 32. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

louis ; and of which, though it is a capo d' opera of Titian, 
as I am no connoisseur, I say little, and thought less, ex- 
cept of one figure in it. There are ten thousand others, and 
some very fine Giorgiones amongst them, etc., etc. There is 
an original Laura and Petrarch, very hideous both. Petrarch 
has not only the dress, but the features and air of an old 
woman, and Laura looks by no means like a young one, or 
a pretty one. What struck me most in the general collec- 
tion was the extreme resemblance of the style of the female 
faces in the mass of pictures, so many centuries or genera- 
tions old, to those you see and meet every day amongst 
the existing Italians. The queen of Cyprus^ and Gior- 
gione's wife,^ particularly the latter, are Venetians as it 
w^ere of yesterday; the same eyes and expression, — and, 
to my mind, there is none finer. 

You must recollect, however, that I know nothing of 
painting; and that I detest it, unless it reminds me of 
something I have seen, or think it possible to see, for 
which [reason] I spit upon and abhor all the Saints and 
subjects of one-half the impostures I see in the churches 
and palaces; and when in Flanders, I never was so dis- 
gusted in my life as with Rubens and his eternal wives 
and infernal glare of colours, as they appeared to me ; and 
in Spain I did not think much of Murillo and Yelasquez. 
Depend upon it, of all the arts, it is the most artificial and 
unnatural, and that by which the nonsense of mankind is 
the most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture — 

1 Catharine Cornaro, on whose abdication, in 1489, the island of Cj^rus 
was acquired by Venice. 

2 An error : Giorgione was unmarried. 

[ 29 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

or the statue — which came within a league of my concep- 
tion or expectation ; but I have seen many mountains, and 
seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who 
went as far beyond it, — besides some horses ; and a lion 
(nt Veli Pasha^s) in the Morea; and a tiger at supper in 
Exeter ^Change. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Venice, April 14, 1817. 

The third act^ is certainly damned bad, and, like the 
Archbishop of Grenada^s homily (which savoured of the 
palsy), has the dregs of my fever, daring which it was 
written. It must on no account be published in its present 
state. I will try and reform it, or rewrite it altogether ; 
but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making 
anything out of it. I would not have it published as it 
is on any account. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is 
the only part of this act I thought good myself; the rest 
is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the 
devii possessed me. 

I am very glad indeed that you sent me Mr. GifPord^s 
opinion without deduction? Do you suppose me such a 
Sotheby as not to be very much obliged to him ? or that 
in fact I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in 
my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense ? 

I shall try at it again : in the meantime, lay it upon the 

1 "Manfred." 

2 Murraj^ sent Byron Gi (Tor d's objections to act iii of "Manfred," which, 
Murray says, " he does not by any means like." 

[ 30 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

shelf (the whole drama, I mean) : but pray correct yoar 
copies of the first and second acts by the original MS. 

I am not coming to England; but going to Eome 
in a few days.^ I return to Venice in June: so, pray, 
address all letters, Qic, to me here, as usual, — that is, to 
Venice, Dr. Polidori this day left this city with Lord 
Guilford for England. He is charged with some books to 
your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same 
address, both for my sister. 

Eecollect not to publish, upon pain of I know not what, 
until I have tried again at the third act. I am not sure 
that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed, if I do ; 
but I am very sure, that (as it is) it is unfit for publication 
or perusal; and unless I can make it out to my own 
satisfaction^ I won't have any part published. 

TO JOHN MUEPtAY 

FoLiGNO, April 26, 1817. 

At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for 
Eome, to which I am thus far advanced. However, I 
went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk 
with beauty. The Yenus^ is more for admiration than 
love ; but there are sculpture and painting, which for the 
first time at all gave me an idea of what people mean by 
their caitty and what Mr. Braham calls '^ entusimusy '* [i. e. 

1 Byron left Venice soon after the middle of April, passing through 
Ferrara, Florence, and Foligno, on his way to Rome. He retm'ned to 
Venice towards the end of May. 

2 Venus dei Medici. 

[ 31 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

entliusiasm) about those two most artificial of the arts. 
What struck me most were, the mistress of Raphael, a 
portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait; a Venus of 
Titian in the Medici gallery — the Venus ; Canova''s Venus 
also in the other gallery : Titian's mistress is also in the 
other gallery {that is, in the Pitti Palace gallery) ; the 
Parcse of Michael Angelo, a picture ; and the Antinous — 
the Alexander — and one or two not very decent groups 
in marble ; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, etc., etc. 

I also went to the Medici chapel ^ — fine frippery in 
great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate 
fifty rotten and forgotten carcases. It is unfinished, and 
will remain so. 

The church of '^ Santa Croce '' contains much illustrious 
nothing. The tombs of Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, 
Galileo Galilei, and Alfieri, make it the Westminster 
Abbey of Italy. I did not admire any of these tombs — 
beyond their contents. That of Alfieri is heavy, and all 
of them seem to me overloaded. What is necessary but 
a bust and name ? and perhaps a date ? — the last for the 
unchronological, of whom I am one. But all your alle- 
gory and eulogy is infernal, and worse than the long wigs 
of English numskulls upon Eoman bodies in the statuary 
of the reigns of Charles, William, and Anne. 

TO JOHN MUEEAY 

Rome, May 5, 1817. 
Dear Sir, — By this post (or next at farthest) I send 
you, in two other covers, the new third act of Mavfred. I 
1 See " Childe Harold," IV, stanza k. 

[32] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

have rewritten the greater part, and returned what is not 
altered in i\x^ proof you sent me. The Abbot is become a 
good man, and the spirits are brought in at the death. 
You will find, I think, some good poetry in this new act, 
here and there ; and if so, print it, without sending me 
further proofs, tinder Mr. GifforcVs correction, if he will 
have the goodness to overlook it. Address all answers to 
Venice, as usual ; I mean to return there in ten days. 

The Lament of Tasso, which I sent from Florence, has, 
I trust, arrived: I look upon it as a ^^hese be good 
rhymes,'' as Pope's papa said to him when he was a boy.i 
For the two — it and the Drama — you will disburse to 
me {via Kinnaird) si<c hundred guineas. You will perhaps 
be surprised that I set the same price upon this as upon 
the Drama ; but, besides that I look upon it as good, I 
won't take less than three hundred guineas for anything. 
The two together will make ijoio a larger publication than 
the Siege and Parisina ; so you may think yourself let off 
very easy ; that is to say, if these poems are good for any- 
thing, which I hope and believe. 

I have been some days in Rome the Wonderful. I am 
seeing sights, and have done nothing else, except the new 
third act for you. I have this morning seen a live pope 
and a dead cardinal ; Pius VII has been burying Cardinal 
Bracchi, whose body I saw in state at the Chiesa Nuova. 
Rome has delighted me beyond everything, since Athens 

1 " His primary and principal purpose," says Johnson, in his " Life of 
Pope" {Lives of the Poets), " was to be a poet, with which his father acci- 
dentally concurred, by proposing subjects, and obliging him to correct his 
performances by many revisals ; after which the old gentleman, when he 
was satisfied, would say, 'These be good rhymes.' " 

3 [ S3 ]* 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

and Constantinople. But I shall not remain long this 
visit. Address to Venice. 

Ever yours, 

B^ 

P. S. — I have got my saddle-horses here, and have 
ridden, and am riding, all about the country. 



EEOM "MANPEED.'^ 

Act III. Scene II — A Chamber in the Castle of 
Manfred. Manfred and Herman. 

Her. 

My lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset : 
He sinks beyond the mountain. 

Man. 

Doth he so ? 
I will look on him. 

[Manfred advances to the Wi7idow of the Hall. 
Glorious Orb ! the idol 
Of early nature, and the vigorous race 
Of undiseased mankind, the giant sons ^ 
Of the embrace of angels with a sex 
More beautiful than they, which did draw down 
The erring spirits who can ne'er return ; — 
Most glorious orb ! that wert a worship, ere 
The mystery of thy making was reveaFd 1 

^ See Genesis vi. 2, 4. 

[ 34 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Thou earliest minister of the Almighty, 

Which gladdened, on their mountain tops, the hearts 

Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they poured 

Themselves in orisons ! Thou material God ! 

And representative of the Unknown, 

Who chose thee for his shadow ! Thou chief star ! 

Centre of many stars ! which mak^st our earth 

Endurable, and temperest the hues 

And hearts of all who walk within thy rays I 

Sire of the seasons ! Monarch of the climes, 

And those who dwell in them ! for near or far. 

Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee, 

Even as our outward aspects ; — thou dost rise. 

And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well ! 

I ne'er shall see thee more. As my first glance 

Of love and wonder was for thee, then take 

My latest look : thou wilt not beam on one 

To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been 

Of a more fatal nature. He is gone ; 

I follow. [Exit Manfred 

Scene III — The Mountains. — The Castle of Man- 
fred at some distance. — A Terrace before a Tower. 
— Time, twilight. 
Herman, Manuel, and other Dependants of Manfred. 

Ber. 

T is strange enough ; night after night, for years, 
He hath pursued long vigils in this tower, 
[ 35 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Without a witness. I have been witliin it, — 
So have we all been oft-times ; but from it. 
Or its contents, it were impossible 
To draw conclusions absolute of aught 
His studies tend to. To be sure, there is 
One chamber where none enter : I would give 
The fee of what I have to come these three years. 
To pore upon its mysteries. 

Manuel. 

^T were dangerous ; 
Content thyself with what thou know^st already. 

Her. 

Ah, Manuel ! thou art elderly and wise. 

And couldst say much; thou hast dwelt within the 

castle — 
How many years is ^t ? 

Manuel. 

Ere Count Manfred's birth, 
I served his father, whom he nought resembles. 

Her. 

There be more sons in like predicament. 
But wherein do they differ ? 

Manuel. 

I speak not 
Of features or of form, but mind and habits ; 
Count Sigismund was proud, but gay and free — 
A warrior and a reveller ; he dwelt not 
[ 36 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

With books and solitude, nor made the night 
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time, 
Merrier than day ; he did not walk tlie rocks 
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside 
From men and their delights. 

Her. 

Beshrew the hour. 
But those were jocund times ! I would that such 
Would visit the old walls again ; they look 

As if they had forgotten them. 

Manuel. 

These walls 
Must change their chieftain first. Oh ! I have seen 
Some strange things in them, Herman. 

Her. 

Come, be friendly ; 
Relate me some to while away our watch : 
I \e heard thee darkly speak of an event 
Which happenM hereabouts, by this same tower. 

Manuel. 

That was a night indeed ! I do remember 
'T was twilight, as it may be now, and such 
Another evening ; yon red cloud, which rests 
On Eigher^s pinnacle, so rested then, — 
So like that it might be the same ; the wind 
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows 
Began to glitter with the climbing moon. 
[ 37 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower, — 
How occupied, we knew not, but with him 
The sole companion of his wanderings 
And watchings — her, whom of all earthly things 
That lived, the only thing he seemM to love, — 
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do, 
The Lady Astarte, his — 

Hush ! who comes here ? 

Enter the Abbot. 

Ahhot, 
Where is your master ? 

Eer, 

Yonder in the tower. 

Ahhot, 
I must speak with him. 

Manuel, 

'T is impossible ; 
He is most private and must not be thus 
Intruded on. 

Ahhot, 

Upon myself I take 
The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be — 
But I must see him. 

Her, 
Thou hast seen him once 
This eve already. 

[ 38 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Abbot. 
Herman ! I command thee, 
Knock, and apprise the Count of my approach. 

We dare not. 

Abbot, 

Then it seems I must be herald 
Of my own purpose. 

Manuel. 
Reverend father, stop — 
I pray you pause. 

Abbot. 
Why so ? 
Manuel. 

But step this way, 

And I will tell you further. 

\^Exeunt, 

Scene IV — Interior of the Tower. Manfred alone. 

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops 
Of the snow-shining mountains. — Beautiful ! 
I linger yet with Nature, for the night 
Hath been to me a more familiar face 
Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 
Of dim and solitary loveliness, 
I learned the language of another world. 
I do remember me, that in my youth, 
[ 39 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

When I was wandering, — upon such a night 
I stood within the Coliseum^s wall. 
Midst the chief relics of almighty Eome. 
The trees which grew along the broken arches 
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 
The watch-dog bajM beyond the Tiber ; and 
More near from out tlie Caesars^ palace came 
The owYs long cry, and, interruptedly. 
Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood 
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt. 
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 
A grove which springs through levelFd battlements 
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,. 
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; — 
But tlie gladiators* bloody Circus stands, 
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection ! 
While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls 
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. 
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon 
All this, and cast a wide and tender light. 
Which soften 'd down the hoar austerity 
Of rugged desolation, and filFd up. 
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries ; 
Leaving that beautiful which still was so. 
And making that which was not, till the place 
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
[ 40 ] 



5- a' 







THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

With silent worship of the great of old^ — 
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns. — ^ 

■'T was such a night ! 
''T is strange that I recall it at this time ; 
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight 
Even at the moment when they should array 
Themselves in pensive order. 

Enter the Abbot. 

Abbot. 

My good lord ! 
I crave a second grace for this approach ; 
But yet let not my humble zeal offend 
By its abruptness — all it hath of ill 
Eecoils on me ; its good in the effect 
May light upon your head — could I say heart — 
Could I touch that, with words or prayers, I should 
Eecall a noble sj^irit which hath wander^ 
But is not yet all lost. 

Man. ' 

Thou know^st me not ; 
My days are numbered, and my deeds recorded : 
Retire, or 't will be dangerous — away ! 

Abbot. 
Thou dost not mean to menace me ? 

1 " Drove at midnight to see tlie Coliseum by moonlight ; hut what ran 
I say of the Coliseum? ... To describe it I should have thought impos- 
sible if I had not read 'Manfred.' . . . Byron's description is the very 
thing itself." — Mathews' "Diary of an Invalid." 

[ *i ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Man, 

Not I; 
I sirnply tell thee peril is at hand, 
And would preserve thee. 





Abbot 








What dost thou mean ? 






Man. 










Look there ! 


What dost thou see 


? 

Abbot 
Nothing. 

Man. 










Look there, 


I say, 


And steadfastly ; — 


- now tell me what thou seest. 





Abbot 

That which should shake me — but I fear it not : 
I see a dusk and awful figure rise, 
Like an infernal god, from out the earth ; 
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form 
Eobed as with angry clouds : he stands between 
Thyself and me — but I do fear him not. 

Man. 

Thou hast no cause ; he shall not harm thee, but 
His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy. 
I say to thee — Eetire ! 

[ 42 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Abbot. 

And I replj. 
Never — till I have battled with this fiend : — 
What doth he here ? 

Man. 

Why — ay — what doth he here ? 
I did not send for him, — he is unbidden. 

Abbot. 

Alas ! lost mortal ! what with guests like these 
Hast thou to do ? I tremble for thy sake : 
Why doth he gaze on thee^ and thou on him ? 
Ah ! he unveils his aspect : on his brow 
The thunder-scars are graven ; from his eye 
Glares forth the immortality of hell — 
Avaunt ! — 

Man. 

Pronounce — what is thy mission ? 

Sjoirit. 

Come ! 
Abbot. 
What art thou, unknown being ? answer ! — speak ! 

Spirit. 
The genius of this mortal. — Come I 'tis time. 

Man. 
I am prepared for all things, but deny 
The power which summons me. Who sent thee here ? 
[ 43 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Sjnrit. 
Thou ^It know anon — Come ! Come ! 

Mmi. 

I have commanded 
Things of an essence greater far than thine, 
And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence ! 

Spirit. 
Mortal! thine hour is come — Away ! I say. 

Man. 

I knew, and know my hour is come, but not 
To render up my soul to such as thee : 
Away ! I ''11 die as I have lived — alone. 

Spirit. 

Then I must summon up my brethren. — Rise ! 

[Other Spirits rise up. 

Abbot, 

A vaunt ! ye evil ones ! — Avaunt ! I say, — 
Ye have no power where piety hath power, 
And I do charge ye in the name — 

Spjirit. 

Old man ! 
We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; 
"Waste not thy holy words on idle uses. 
It were in vain : this man is forfeited. 
Ouce more I summon him — Away ! away ! 

[ 44 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Man. 

I do defy ye — though I feel my soul 

Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye ; 

Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath 

To breathe my scorn upon ye — earthly strength 

To wrestle, though with spirits ; what ye take 

Shall be ta'en limb by limb. 

Spirit. 

Eeluctant mortal ! 
Is this the Magian who would so pervade 
The world invisible, and make himself 
Almost our equal ? — Can it be that thou 
Art thus in love with life ? the very life 
Which made thee wretched ! 



Thou false fiend, thou liest ! 
My life is in its last hour, — that I know, 
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour. 
I do not combat against death, but thee 
And thy surrounding angels ; my past power 
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, 
But by superior science, penance, daring, 
And length of watching, strength of mind, and skill 
In knowledge of our fathers when the earth 
Saw men and spirits walking side by side 
And gave ye no supremacy : I stand 
Upon my strength — I do defy — deny — 
Spurn back, and scorn ye ! — 
[ 45 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Spirit. 

But thy many crimes 
Have made thee — 

Man, 

What are they to such as thee ? 
Must crimes be punish^ but by other crimes, 
And greater criminals ? — Back to thy hell ! 
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel ; 
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know : 
What I have done is done ; I bear within 
A torture which could nothing gain from thine. 
The mind which is immortal makes itself 
Eequital for its good or evil thoughts, 
Is its own origin of ill and end, 
And its own place and time ; its innate sense. 
When stripped of this mortality, derives 
No colour from the fleeting things without. 
But is absorbed in sufferance or in joy. 
Born from the knowledge of its own desert. 
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me ; 
I have not been thy dupe nor am thy prey. 
But was my own destroyer, and will be 
My own hereafter. — Back, ye baffled fiends ! 
The hand of death is on me — but not yours ! 

\The Lemons disappear. 

Abbot. 

Alas ! how pale thou art — thy lips are white — 
And thy breast heaves — and in thy gasping throat 
[ 46 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

The accents rattle. Give thy prayers to Heaven — 
Pray — albeit but in thought, — but die not thus. 

Man, 

'T is over — my dull eyes can fix thee not : 
But all things swim around me, and the earth 
Heaves as it were beneath me. Pare thee well — 
Give me thy hand. 

Abbot. 
Cold — cold — even to the heart — 
But yet one prayer — Alas ! how fares it with thee ? 

Man. 

Old man ! 'i is not so difficult to die. 

[Manfred expires. 

AbboL 
He 's gone, his soul hath ta'en its earthless flight ; 
Whither ? I dread to think ; but he is gone. 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Rome, May 9, 1817- 

• .•••• 

I am delighted with Eome — as I would be with a 
bandbox, that is, it is a fine thing to see, finer than 
Greece ; but I have not been here long enough to affect it 
as a residence, and I must go back to Lombardy, because 
I am wretched at being away from M[ariann]a. I have 
been riding my saddle-horses every day, and been to 
Albano, its lakes, and to the top of the Alban Mount, and 
[ 47 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

to Frascati, Aricia, etc., etc., with an etc., etc., etc., about 
the city, and in the city : for all which — vide Guide-book. 
As a whoUy ancient and moderny it beats Greece, Constan- 
tinople, everything — at least that I have ever seen. But 
I can't describe, because my first impressions are always 
strong and confused, and my Memory selects and reduces 
them to order, like distance in the landscape, and blends 
them better, although they may be less distinct. There 
must be a sense or two more than we have, as mortals, 
which I suppose the Devil has (or t'other) ; for where 
there is much to be grasped we are always at a loss, and 
yet feel that we ought to have a higher and more extended 
comprehension. 

I have had a letter from !Moore, who is in some alarm 
about his poem. I don't see why. 

I have had another from my poor dear Augusta,^ who is 
in a sad fuss about my late illness ; do, pray, tell her (the 
truth) that I am better than ever, and in importunate 
health, growing (if not grown) large and ruddy, and con- 
gratulated by impertinent persons on my robustious appear- 
ance, when I ought to be pale and interesting. . . . 

I have no thoughts of coming amongst you yet awhile, 
so that I can fight off business. If I could but make a 
tolerable sale of Newstead, there would be no occasion for 
my return ; and I can assure you very sincerely, tliat I am 
much happier (or, at least, have been so) out of your 
island than in it. 

Yours ever truly, 

B. 

1 Lady Augusta Leigh, Byron's sister. 

[ 48 ] 



11 



I. =2 




>5 

^ 3 

n 

5 5- 



THE YExVRS 1817, 1818, 1819 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Venice, June 4, 1817. 
• • • • • 

I was delighted with Eome, and was on horseback all 
round it many hours daily, besides in it the rest of my 
time, bothering over its marvels. I excursed and skirred 
the country round to Alba, Tivoli, Frascati, Licenza, etc., 
etc. ; besides, I visited twice the Fall of Terni, which beats 
everything.^ On my way back, close to the temple by its 
banks, I got some famous trout out of the river Clitumnus 
— the prettiest little stream in all poesy,^ near the first 
post from Foligno and Spoleto. I did not stay at 
Florence, being anxious to get home to Venice, and having 
already seen the galleries and other sights. I left my 
commendatory letters the evening before I went, so I saw 
nobody. 

To-day, Pindemonte,^ the celebrated poet of Verona, 
called on me ; he is a little thin man, with acute and pleas- 
ing features ; his address good and gentle ; his appearance 
altogether very philosophical ; his age about sixty, or more. 
He is one of their best going. I gave him Forsyth,^ as he 
speaks, or reads rather, a little English, and will find there 
a favourable account of himself. He enquired after his 

1 " Childe Harold," Canto IV, stanza Ixxi. 

2 Compare " Childe Harold," Canto IV, stanza kn. 

3 Ippolito Pindcmonte (1753-1828), born at Verona, translated into 
blank verse the Odyssey, the Gcorgics, and passages from Ovid and Catullus. 
He also wrote a classic tragedy, " Arminio," and published several volumes 
of poetry. 

* " Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters during an Excursion in 
Italy in 1802 and 1803," by Joseph Forsyth. 

4 [ 49 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

old Cruscan friends, Parsons, Greathead, Mrs. Piozzi, and 
Merry, all of whom he had known in his youth. I gave 
him as bad an account of them as I could, answering, as 
the false " Solomon Lob '^ does to " Totterton '''' in the 
farce,^ that they were " all gone dead,"*' and damned by 
a satire more than twenty years ago; that the name of 
their extinguisher was Gilford ; that they were but a sad 
set of scribes after all, and no great things in any other 
way. He seemed, as was natural, very much pleased 
with this account of his old acquaintances, and went away 
greatly gratified with that and Mr. Forsyth's sententious 
paragraph of applause in his own (Pindemonte's) favour. 
After having been a little libertine in his youth, he is 
grown devout, and takes prayers, and talks to himself, 
to keep off' the Devil; but for all that, he is a very nice 
little old gentleman. 

I forgot to tell you that at Bologna (which is celebrated 
for producing popes, painters, and sausages) I saw an 
anatomical gallery, where there is a deal of waxwork, in 
which . . . 

I am sorry to hear of your row with Hunt ^ : but sup- 
pose him to be exasperated by the (Quarterly and your 
refusal to deal ; and when one is angry and edits a paper 
I should think the temptation too strong for literary 
nature, which is not always human. I can^t conceive in 
what, and for what, he abuses you : what have you done ? 

1 " Love laughs at Locksmiths," by George Colman the Yciinger. 

2 John Hunt, editor of the Examiner. " Wat Tyler " was reviewed in the 
Examiner for May 4, 1817, and, in the numbers for May 11 and May 18, 
Southey's letter was violently attacked, and Murray himself not spared. 

[ 50 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

you are not an author — nor a politician — nor a public 
cliaracter; I know no scrape you have tumbled into. 
I am the more sorry for this^, because I introduced you 
to Hunt^ and because I believe him to be a very good 
man; but till I know the particulars, I cau give no 
opinion. 

Let me know about Lallah Rookh, which must be out 
by this time. 

I restore the proofs, but the punctuation should be 
corrected. I feel too lazy to have at it myself; so beg 
and pray Mr. Gifford for me. Address for Yenice. In 
a few days I go to my Villeggiaturay in a casino near the 
Erenta/ a few miles only on the mainland. I have 
determined on another year, and many years, of residence, 
if I can compass them. Marianna is with me, hardly 
recovered of the fever, which has been attacking all Italy 
last winter. I am afraid she is a little hectic ; but I hope 
the best. 

Ever yours truly, 

B. 

P. S. — Torwaltzen has done a bust of me at Eome for 
Mr. Hobhouse, which is reckoned very good.^ He is their 
best after Canova, and by some preferred to him. 

1 The " deep -dyed " Brenta flows, from its source in Tyrol, past Padua 
into the Lagoon at Fusina. Byron's villa La Mira was on the river near 
Mira, about seven miles inland. 

2 The original of the bust is now in the possession of Lady Dorchester, 
daughter of Mr. Hobhouse. The head of the statue at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, begun by Thorwaldsen in 1829, and finished in 1834, is a 
repetition of the original bust. 

[ 51 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 



TO THOMAS MOOEE 

La Mira, Venice, July 10, 1817. 

Murray, the Mokanna ^ of booksellers, has contrived to 
send me extracts from Lalla Rookh by the post. They 
are taken from some magazine, and contain a short outline 
and quotations from the two first Poems. I am very much 
delighted with what is before me, and very thirsty for the 
rest. You have caught the colours as if you had been in 
the rainbow, and the tone of the East is perfectly pre- 
served. I am glad you have changed the title from 
"Persian Tale.'' . . . 

I suspect you have written a devilish fine composition, 
and I rejoice in it from my heart; because "the Douglas 
and the Percy both together are confident against a world 
in arms."" I hope you won't be affronted at my looking 
on us as " birds of a feather " ; though, on whatever sub- 
ject you had written, I should have been very happy in 
your success. . . . 

Do you remember that damned supper at Rancliffe's that 
ought to have been a dinner ? " Ah, Master Shallow, we 
have heard the chimes at midnight." But 

My boat is on the shore, 

And my bark is on the sea ; 
But, before I go, Tom Moore, 

Here 's a double health to thee ! 

1 An allusion to the all-powerful Veikd Mekanna in "Lalla Rookh." 

[ 52 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Here's a sigh to those who love me, 

And a smile to those who hate ; 
And whatever sky ^s above me, 

Here ^s a heart for every fate. 

Though the ocean roar around me. 

Yet it still shall bear me on ; 
Though a desert should surround me. 

It hath springs that may be won. 

Were 't the last drop in the w-ell. 

As I gaspM upon the brink. 
Ere my fainting spirit fell, 

^T is to thee that I would drink. 

With that water, as this wine. 

The libation I would pour 
Should be — peace with thine and mine. 

And a health to thee, Tom Moore. 

This should have been written fifteen moons ago — tlie 
first stanza was.^ I am just come out from an hour^s 
swim in the Adriatic ; and I write to you with a black- 
eyed Venetian girl before me, reading Boccaccio. . . . 

Last week I had a row on the road (I came up to 
Yenice from my casino, a few miles on the Paduan road, 
this blessed day, to bathe) with a fellow in a carriage, who 
was impudent to my horse. I gave him a swingeing box 
on the ear, which sent him to the police, who dismissed 
his complaint. Witnesses had seen the transaction. He 
first shouted, in an unseemly way, to frighten my palfry 
I wheeled round, rode up to the window, and asked him 

1 The lines were partly written in April, 1816. 

[ 53 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

what lie meant. He grinned, and said some foolery, which 
produced him an immediate slap in the face, to his utter 
discomfiture. Much blasphemy ensued, and some menace, 
which I stopped by dismounting and opening the carriage 
door, and intimating an intention of mending tlie road 
with his immediate remains, if he did not hold his tongue. 
He held it. 

Monk Lewis is here — '' how pleasant ! ■" He is a very 
good fellow, and very much yours. So is Sam — so is 
every body — and amongst tlie number. 

Yours ever, 

B. 

p. S. — What think you of Manfred? . . . 

TO JOHN MUEKAY 

September 15, 1817. 
• • • • • • 

The other day I wrote to convey my ])roposition with 

regard to the fourth and concluding canto. ^ I have gone 

over and extended it to one hundred and fifty stanzas, which 

is almost as long as the two first were originally, and longer 

by itself than any of the smaller poems except The Corsair. 

Mr. Hobhouse has made some very valuable and accurate 

notes of considerable length, and you may be sure I will 

do for the text all that I can to finish with decency. I 

look upon Childe Harold as my best ; and as I begun, 

I think of concluding with it. But I make no resolutions 

on that head, as I broke my former intention with regard 

to The Corsair. However, I fear that I shall never do 

better; and yet, not being tliirty years of age for some 

1 Of "Childe Harold." 

[ 54 ] 



jyjONUMENT to Galileo, in Santa Croce, 
Florence, by Foggini. 




The starry Galileo, with his looes." 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza 1 



iv, p. 71. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

moons to come, one ought to be progressive as far as 
Intellect goes for many a good year. But I have had a 
devilish deal of wear and tear of mind and body in my 
time, besides having published too often and much already. 
God grant me some judgment ! to do what may be most 
fitting in that and everything else, for I doubt my own 
exceedingly. 

I have read Lallali RooM, but not with sufficient atten- 
tion yet, for I ride about, and lounge, and ponder, and — 
two or three other things ; so that my reading is very 
desultory, and not so attentive as it used to be. I am 
very glad to hear of its popularity, for Moore is a very 
noble fellow in all respects, and will enjoy it without any 
of the bad feeling which success — good or evil — some- 
times engenders in the men of rhyme. Of the poem itself, 
I will tell you my opinion when I have mastered it : I say 
of the poem, for I don't like the prose at all — at all ; and 
in the meantime, " The Fire Worshippers'*' is the best, and 
" The Veiled Prophet " the worst, of the volume. 

With regard to poetry in general,^ I am convinced, the 
more I think of it, that he and all of us — Scott, Southey, 
Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, I, — are all in the wrong, 
one as much as another ; that we are upon a wrong revo- 
lutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn 
in itself, and from which none but Eogers and Crabbe are 
free ; and tliat the present and next generations will finally 
be of this opinion. I am the more confirmed in this by 

1 On this paragraph, in the MS. copy of the above letter, is the follow- 
ing note, in the handwriting of ]\Ir. Gifford : " There is more good sense, 
and feeling, and judgment in this passage, than in any other I ever read, or 
Lord livrou wrote." 

[ 55 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

having lately gone over some of our classics, ])articularly 
I*ojpe^ whom I tried in this way : I took Moore^s poems 
and ray own and some others, and went over them side by 
side with Pojje's, and I was really astonished (I ought not 
to have been so) and mortified at the ineffable distance in 
point of sense, harmony, effect, nnd even Imagination, pas- 
sion, and Invention, between the little Queen Anne^s man, 
and us of the Lower Empire. Depend upon it, it is all 
Horace then, and Claudian now, among us ; and if I 
had to begin again, I would model myself accordingly. 
Crabbers . . . got a coarse and impracticable subject, and 
Eogers, the Grandfather of living Poetry, is retired upon 
half-pay (I don^t mean as a Banker), — 

Since pretty Miss Jaqueline, 

With her nose aquiline, 

and has done enough, unless he were to do as he did 
formerly. 

CIIILDE IIAUOLD^S PILGRIMAGE 

Cxi N TO THE FOURTH 

Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, 

Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra 
Italia, e uu mare e 1' altro, che la bagua.i 

Ariosto, Satira iii, 

Venice, January 2, 1818. 

TO JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A. M., F. R. S., &c. 

My dear IIobhouse, — After an interval of eight 
years between the composition of the first and last cantos 

^ " I have seen Tuscany, I.ombardy, and the Romagna, the mountain 
range that divides Italy and that which hems her in, and the one and the 
other sea that bathes her " 

[ -56 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

of Chilcle Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to 
be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a 
friend^ it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one 
still older and better, — to one who has beheld the birth 
and death of the other, and to whom I am far more in- 
debted for the social advantages of an enlightened friend- 
ship, than — though not ungrateful — I can, or could be, 
to Chilcle Ilaroldy for any public favour reflected through 
the poem on the poet, — to one, whom I have known long, 
and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my 
sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and 
firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, 
— to a friend often tried and never found wanting ; — to 
yourself. 

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, 
either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the 
present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. 
But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found 
hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and 
the consequent reflections ; and for the whole of the notes, 
excepthig a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, 
and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the 
text. 

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert 
upon the literature and maimers of a nation so dissimilar ; 
and requires an attention and impartiality which would 
induce us — tliough perhaps no inattentive observers, nor 
ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst 
whom we have recently abode — to distrust, or at least 
[ 57 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

defer our judgment^ and more narrowly examine our infor- 
mation. The state of literary, as well as political party, 
appears to run, or to have run, so liigli, that for a stranger 
to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. 
It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote 
from their own beautiful language — " Mi pare che in un 
paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la piii nobile ed 
insieme la piu dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono 
tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha 
perduto Y antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la 
prima.^' ^ Italy has great names still : Canova, Monti, Ugo 
Toscolo, Pindemonte, Yisconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, 
Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will se- 
cure to the present generation an honourable place in most 
of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres, 
and in some the very highest ; Europe — the World — has 
but one Canova. 

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that " La pianta 
uomo nasce piii robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra 
terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono 
ne sono una prova.''^^ Without subscribing to the latter 
part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of 
w^iich may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that 
the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their 
neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly 

1 "It seems to me in a country wholly poetic, which boasts a language at 
once the noblest and the sweetest, all the different ways may be tried, and 
that since the land of Alfieri and of Monti has not lost her ancient worth, 
she should, in all, be the first." 

2 " The human plant, in Italy, grows more robust than in any other land, 
and even the atrocious crimes committed there are a proof of it." 

[ 58 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capac- 
ity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, tlieir 
capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity 
of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of 
beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revo- 
lutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, 
their still unquenched " longing after immortality,^^ — the 
immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in 
riding round the walls of Eome, heard the simple lament 
of the labourers'* chorus, " Eoma ! Eoma ! Eoma ! Eoma 
non e piii come era prima,^"* ^ it was difficult not to contrast 
this melancholy dirge witli the bacchanal roar of the songs 
of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the 
carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of 
Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct 
you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better 
days of our history. For me, — 

^^Non movero mai corda 
Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda/^ ^ 

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it 
were useless for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes 
ascertained that England has acquired something more 
than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus : 
it is enough for them to look at home. For what they 
have done abroad, and especially in the South, '^ Verily 
they will have their reward,^"* and at no very distant period. 

^ " Eome ! Eome ! Rome ! no longer is she what once she was." 
^ " Never will I touch the lyre where the rabble deafens me with its 
fooleries." 

[ 59 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Wishing you, my dear Hobliouse, a safe and agreeable 
return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to 
none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its 
completed state ; and repeat once more how truly I am 
ever. 

Your obliged 

And affectionate friend, 

Byron. 



I STOOD in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand ; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of tlie enchanter^s wand : 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dyhig Glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look^l to the winged Lion^s marble piles. 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles ! 

II 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 
Eising with her tiara of proud towers 
At airy distance, with majestic motion, 
A ruler of the waters and their powers. 
And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers : 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. 
[ 60 ] 



B 



RIDGE of Sighs, at Venice. 




/ stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand. " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza 



60. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

III 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
And silent rows the songless gondolier ; 
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear : 
Those days are gone, but Beauty still is here ; 
States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die. 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
The pleasant place of all festivity, 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! 

IV 

But unto us she hath a spell beyond 
Her name in story, and her long array 
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway : 
Ours is a trophy which will not decay 
With the Eialto ; Shylock and the Moor 
And Pierre ^ can not be swept or worn away. 
The keystones of the arch ! — though all were o'er, 
Eor us repeopled were the solitary shore. 

XI 

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; 
And annual marriage now no more renewed. 
The Bucentaur 2 lies rotting unrestored, 

1 A conspirator in Otway's " Venice Preserved." 

2 Burned by the French in 1797. A copy may be seen in Museum at 
Arsenal of Venice. 

[ 61 ] 



WITH BYRON LN ITALY 

Neglected garment of her widowliood ! 
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood^ 
Stand, but in mockery of his witherM power. 
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, 
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour 
When Venice was a queen with an unequalFd dower. 

XII 

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns — 
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; 
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains 
Clank over sceptred cities ; nations melt 
Erom power's high pinnacle, wdien they have felt 
The sunshine for a while, and downward gD 
Like lauwine loosenM from the mountain's belt : — 
Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo,^ 
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe ! 

Xlli 

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass. 
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun ; 
But is not Doria's menace come to pass ? 
Are they not hridlecl?'^ — Venice, lost and won, 
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 

1 The winged Lion of St. Mark stands on a granite column at entrance 
to Piazzetta. Here in 1177 the Suabian Emperor Barbarossa submitted 
to Pope Alexander III. 

2 Daudolo, Doge of Venice, was ninety-seven years old when he com- 
manded the Venetians at the taking of Constantinople. 

3 When the Venetians sued Doria for peace (1379) his answer was : 
"Not until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, 
that are upon the porch of your St. Mark." 

[ 62 ] 






' =i 




25 



i" 2 
o = 

•'^ o 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose ! 
Better be whelmM beneath, the waves, and shun. 
Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes. 
From whom submission wrings an infamous rej^ose. 

XIV 
In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre, 
Her very by-word sprung from victory. 
The " Planter of the Lion,'^ which through fire 
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea ; 
Though making many slaves, herself still free. 
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; — 
Witness Troy's rival, Candia ! Touch it, ye 
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight ! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. 

XV 
Statues of glass — all shivered — the long file 
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust ; 
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile 
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust ; 
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust. 
Have yielded to the stranger : empty halls, 
Tliin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must 
Too oft remind her who and what enthralls. 
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls. 

XVI 
"When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, 
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war, 
Eedemption rose up in the Attic Muse, 
Her voice their only ransom from afar : 

[ fi;5 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

See ! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car 
Of the overmastered victor stops, the reins 
Fall from his hands — his idle scimitar 
Starts from its belt — he rends his captive's cliains, 
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. 

XVII 

Thus, Yenice, if no stronger claim were thine, 
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot. 
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine. 
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot 
Which ties thee to thy tyrants ; and thy lot 
Is shameful to the nations, — most of all, 
Albion, to thee : the Ocean queen should not 
Abandon Ocean's children ; in the fall 
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. 

XVIIl 

I loved her from my boyhood ; she to me 
Was as a fairy city of the heart, 
Eising like water-columns from the sea, 
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart : 
And Otwaj, RadclifFe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art,^ 
Had stamp'd her image in me ; and even so. 
Although I found her thus, we did not part. 
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe 
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. 

1 Venice Preserved ; Mysteries of UdolpJio ; The Ghost-Seer, or Armen- 
ian ; The Merchant of Venice ; Othello. (Byron's Note.) 

[ 64 ] 



= o 



* ^ a 



S- ^ a- 



c 5- o 
^ a <» 




THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 



XIX 

I can repeople with the past — and of 
The present there is still for eye and thought. 
And meditations chastened down, enough. 
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought ; 
And of the happiest moments which were wrought 
Within the web of my existence, some 
From thee, fair Venice, have their colours caught : 
There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, 
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 



XXV 

But my soul wanders ; I demand it back 
To meditate amongst decay, and stand 
A ruin amidst ruins ; there to track 
FalFn states and buried greatness, o^er a land 
Which was the mightiest in its old command. 
And is the loveliest, and must ever be 
The master-mould of Nature^s heavenly hand. 
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free. 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea, 

XXVI 

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Eome ! 
And even since, and now, fair Italy, 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Even in tliy desert, what is like to thee ? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes^ fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced. 



XXVII 

The moon is up, and yet it is not night — 
Sunset divides the sky -with, her, a sea 
Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
Of blue Eriuli^s mountains ; Heaven is free 
Prom clouds, but of all colours seems to be 
Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
Where the Day joins the past Eternity ; 
While, on the other hand, meek Dianas crest 
Floats through the azure air, an island of the blest ! 

XXVIII 

A single star is at her side, and reigns 
With her o'er half the lovely heaven ; but still 
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains 
EolFd o'er the peak of the far Khsetian hill. 
As Day and Night contending were, until 
Nature reclaimed her order : gently flows 
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil 
The odorous purple of a new-born rose, 
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it 
glows, 

[ e6 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

XXIX 

rillM with the face of heaven, which from afar 
Comes down upon the waters ; all its hues, 
From the rich sunset to the rising star. 
Their magical variety diffuse. 
And now they change ; a paler shadow strews 
Its mantle o^er the mountains ; parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new colour as it gasps away. 
The last still loveliest, till — 't is gone — and all is gray. 

XXX 

There is a tomb in Arqua ; rear'd in air, 
PillarM in their sarcophagus, repose 
The bones of Laura's lover : here repair 
Many familiar with his well-sung woes. 
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose 
To raise a language, and his land reclaim 
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes ; 
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name 
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame. 

XXXI 

They keep his dust in Arqua where he died. 
The mountain-village where his latter days 

Went down the vale of years ; and 't is their pride 

An honest pride, and let it be their praise — 
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze 
[ 67 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

His mansion and his sepulchre ; both phdn 
And venerably simple, such as raise 
A feeling more accordant with his strain 
Tlian if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane. 

XXXII 
And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt 
Is one of that complexion wliich seems made 
Eor those who their mortality have felt, 
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayM 
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade. 
Which shows a distant prospect far away 
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed 
Eor they can lure no further ; and the ray 
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday, 

XXXIII 

Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers, 
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by. 
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours 
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye 
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality. 
If from society we learn to live, 
''T is solitude should teach us how to die ; 
It hath no flatterers ; vanity can give 
No hollow aid; alone — man with his God must strive 

XXXIV 
Or, it may be, with demons, wlio impair 
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey 
In melancholy bosoms, such as were 
Of moody texture from their earliest day 

[ 68 ] 



c 



IIURCH of Santa Croce, Florence. 




In Santa Croce^s holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is 
Even in itself an immortality.'''' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza liv, p 71. 

— See Letter from Foligno, p. 32. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, 
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom 
Which is not of the pangs that pass away ; 
Making the snn like blood, the earth a tomb. 
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. 



XXXIX 
Peace to Torquato's ^ injured shade ! 't was his 
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong 
Aim^d with her poisonM arrows, but to miss. 
Oh, victor unsurpassM in modern song ! 
Each year brings forth its millions ; but how long 
The tide of generations shall roll on, 
And not the whole combined and countless throng 
Compose a mind like thine ? Though all in one 
Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun. 

XL 

Great as thou art, yet paralleFd by those. 
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine, 
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry 2 : first rose 
The Tuscan father's comedy divine ; 
Then, not unequal to the Florentine 
The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth 
A new^ creation with his magic line, 
And, like the Ariosto of the North,^ 
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 

1 Torquato Tasso. See "Lament of Tasso," p. 18. 

2 Dante and Ariosto. 3 Walter Scott. 

[ 69 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XLVII 

Yet, Italy ! through every other land 
Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side ; 
Mother of Arts, as once of arms ; thy hand 
Was then our guardian, and is still our guide ; 
Parent of our Religion, whom the wide 
Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven ! 
Europe, repentant of her parricide, 
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, 
Eoll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 

XLVIII 

But Arno wins us to the fair white walls. 
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps 
A softer feeling for lier fairy halls. 
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps 
Her corn and wine and oil, and Plenty leaps 
To laughing life with her redundant horn. 
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps 
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born. 
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn. 

XLIX 

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone,^ and fills 
The air around with beauty. We inhale 
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils 
Part of its immortality ; the veil 

1 The Venus de' Medici. 

[ 70 ] 



'ENUS de' Medici in Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 




" The Goddess loves in stone^ and fills 
The air around icith beauty ; . . . within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make when Nature's self would fail. 



niiiirio Hapnl<1. fianto IV. staiiza xlix p. 70. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale 
We stand, and in that form and face behold 
What mind can make when Nature's self would fail ; 
And to the fond idolaters of old 
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould. 



We gaze and turn away, and know not where, 
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart 
Heel-s with its fulness ; there — for ever there 
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, 
We stand as captives and would not depart. 
Away ! — there need no words nor terms precise. 
The paltry jargon of the marble mart 
Where Pedantry gulls Folly — we have eyes : 
Blood, pulse, and breast confirm tlie Dardan Shepherd's 
prize. 



LIV 

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie 
Ashes which make it holier, dust whicli is 
Even in itself an immortality, 
Though there were nothing save the past, and this. 
The particle of those sublimities 
Which have relapsed to chaos : here repose 
Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his. 
The starry Galileo, with his woes ; 
Here l^Iachiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose. 
[ 71 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LY 

These are four minds, which, like the elements. 
Might furnish forth creation. Italy ! 
Time, which hath wrongM thee with ten thousand rents 
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny. 
And hath denied, to every other sky 
Spirits which soar from ruin : — thy decay 
Is still impregnate with divinity. 
Which gilds it with revivifying ray ; 
Such as the great of yore, Canova is to-day. 

LVI 

But where repose the all Etruscan three — 
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they. 
The Bard of Prose, creative spirit, he 
Of the Hundred Tales of love — where did they lay 
Their bones, distinguish^ from our common clay 
In death as life ? Are they resolved to dust, 
And have their country^s marbles nought to say ? 
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust ? 
Did they not to her breast their filial earth intrust ? 

LVII 

Ungrateful Florence ! Dante sleeps afar,^ 
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore ; 
Thy factions, in tlieir worse than civil war. 
Proscribed the bard whose name for evermore 
Their children's children would in vain adore 

^ Dante, buried at Raveuna ; the elder Scipio Africanus, at Liternum. 

[ T2 ] 






5 >■. < 



=• ^ a- 



a-tj i. 







-3. ^ 



I— o 

o* o 



a. 3 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

With the remorse of ages ; and the crown 
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore, 
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown. 
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled — not thine own.^ 

LVIII 

Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed 
His dust ; and lies it not her Great among. 
With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed 
O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue ? 
That music in itself, whose sounds are song, 
The poetry of speech ? No ; — even his tomb 
Uptorn must bear the hyaena bigot's wrong, 
No more amidst the meaner dead find room. 
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for w/iom 1 2 

LIX 

And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust, — 

• Yet for this want more noted, as of yore 
The Caesar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust. 
Did but of Eome's best Son remind her more. 
Happier Eavenna ! on thy hoary shore. 
Fortress of falling empire, honour'd sleeps 
The immortal exile ; Arqua, too, her store 
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps. 

While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead, and weeps. 

1 Petrarch was crowned with the laurel wreath at Rome in 1341. His 
grave was rifled in 1630. 

2 Boccaccio's tombstone was torn up and ejected from the church at 
Certaldo, where he was buried. 

[ 'TS ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LX 

What is her pyramid of precious stones, 
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues 
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones 
Of merchant-dukes ? The momentary dews 
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse 
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead, 
Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse, 
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread 
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head. 

LXI 

There be more things to greet the heart and eyes 
In Arno^s dome of Art's most princely shrine. 
Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies ; 
There be more marvels yet — but not for mine ; 
For I have been accustomed to entwine 
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields, 
Than Art in galleries : though a work divine 
Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields 
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields 

LXII 

Is of another temper, and I roam 
By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles 
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home ; 
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles 
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles 
[ 74 ] 



^^^ 



1 ^ ^ '-■ 

Sr * <=i *« 







THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

The host between the mountains and the shore, 
Where Courage falls in her despairing files, 
And torrents, swolPn to rivers with their gore, 
Eeek through the sultry plain with legions scattered o^er, 

LXIII 
Like to a forest felFd by mountain winds ; 
And such the storm of battle on this day, 
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds 
To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray. 
An earthquake reePd unheededly away ! 
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet. 
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay 
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet ; 
Such is the absorbing hate w^hen warring nations meet ! 

LXIV 
The Earth to them was as a rolling bark 
Which bore them to Eternity ; they saw 
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark 
The motions of their vessel ; Nature^s law. 
In them suspended, reckM not of the awe 
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds 
Plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw 
From their down-toppling nests ; and bellowing herds 
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words. 

LXV 
Far other scene is Thrasimene now ; 
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain 
Ilent by no ravage save the gentle plough ; 

[ 75 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain 
Lay where tlieir roots are ; but a brook hath ta'eii — 
A little rill of scanty stream and bed — 
A name of blood from that day^s sanguine rain ; 
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead 
Made the earth wet and turn'd the unwilling waters red. 

LXVI 

But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave 
Of the most living crystal that was e'er 
The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave 
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear 
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer 
Grazes, — the purest god of gentle waters. 
And most serene of aspect, and most clear ! 
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters — 
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters ! 

LXVII 

And on thy happy shore a Temple still. 
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps^ 
Upon a inild declivity of hill, 
Its memory of thee ; beneath it sweeps 
Thy current's calmness ; oft from out it leaps 
The finny darter with the glittering scales, 
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps ; 
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails 
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling 
tales. 

[ 76 ] 



•■■V VJ'i ^ I -' ' 



mm 








^1: 

3: ^ 






^1 

5= '^ 



THE YEARS ]817, 1818, 1819 

LXVIII 

Pass not unblest the Genius of the place ! 
If through the air a zephyr more serene 
Win to the brow, 't is his ; and if ye trace 
Along his margin a more eloquent green, 
If on the heart the freshness of the scene 
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust 
Of weary life a moment lave it clean 
AVith Nature's baptism, — 't is to him ye must 
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. 

LXIX 
The roar of waters ! — from the headlong height 
Velino cleaves the w^ave-worn precipice ; 
The fall of waters ! rapid as the light 
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss ; 
The hell of waters ! where they howl and hiss. 
And boil in endless torture ; while the sweat 
Of their great agony, wrung out from this 
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet 
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,^ 

LXX 

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again 
Eeturns in an unceasing shower, w^hich round. 
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain. 
Is an eternal April to the ground, 
Making it all one emerald : — how profound 
- The gulf ! and how the giant element 
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, 
[ 77 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent 
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent 

LXXI 

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows 
More like the fountain of an infant sea 
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes 
Of a new world, than only thus to be 
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, 
With many windings, through the vale : — Look back ! 
Lo, where it comes like an eternity. 
As if to sweep down all things in its track. 
Charming the eye with dread — a matchless cataract, 

LXXII 

Horribly beautiful ! but on the verge, 
Erom side to side, beneath the glittering morn, 
An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge. 
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn 
Its steady dyes while all around is torn 
By the distracted waters, bears serene 
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn; 
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene. 
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. 

Lxxin 

Once more upon the woody Apennine, 
The infant Alps, which — had I not before 
Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine 
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar 
' [ 78 ] 



rpH 



E Falls at Terni. 




" Look back! 
Lo ! ivliere it comes like an eternity. 
As if to sweep down all things in its track. 
Charming the eye with dread, — a matchless cataract."' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza Ixxi, p. 78. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

The thundering lauwine^ — might be worshipped more. 
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear 
Her never-trodden snow^, and seen the hoar 
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, 
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear, 

LXXIV 

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name ; 
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly 
Like spirits of the spot, as 't were for fame, 
For still they soared unutterably high : 
I 've lookM on Ida with a Trojan's eye ; 
Athos, Olympus, ^Etna, Atlas, made 
These hills seem things of lesser dignity. 
All, save the lone Soracte's height, display^ 
Not noiv in snow, which asks the lyric Eoman's aid ^ 

LXXV 

For our remembrance, and from out the plain 
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break. 
And on the curl hangs pausing. Not in vain 
May he, who will, his recollections rake. 
And quote in classic raptures, and awake 
The hills with Latian echoes ; I abhorrM 
Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake. 
The drilFd dull lesson, forced down word by word 
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 

^ Lauwine is the Swiss name for avalanche. 

^ An allusion to one of the odes of Horace in which he speaks of Soracie 
as white with snow. 

[ 79 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LXXVI 

Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned 
My sickening memory ; and^ though Time hath taught 
My mind to meditate what tlien it learned, 
Yet such the fix^d inveteracy wrought 
By the impatience of my early thought, 
That, with the freshness wearing out before 
My mind could relish what it might have sought, 
If free to choose, I cannot now restore 
Its health ; but what it then detested, still abhor. 

LXXVII 

Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so. 
Not for thy faults, but mine ; it is a curse 
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow. 
To comprehend, but never love thy verse. 
Although no deeper Moralist rehearse 
Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art. 
Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce. 
Awakening without wounding the touched heart ; — 
Yet fare thee well — upon Soracte^s ridge we part. 

LXXVIII 

O Rome, my country ! city of the soul ! 
The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
Lone mother of dead empires, and control 
In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
[ 80 ] 



i' ^ 
S.I 






s 

*?». 







THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 

LXXIX 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
An empty urn within her wither^ liands, 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago : 
The Scipios* tomb contains no ashes now ; ^ 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 
Of their heroic dwellers ; — dost thou flow. 
Old Tiber, through a marble Avilderness ? 
Eise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress ! 

LXXX 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilFd city's pride : 
She saw her glories star by star expire. 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride 
Where the car climbed, the capitol ; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, 
O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, 
And say, ' here was, or is,' where all is doubly night ? 

1 The tomb of the Scipios was discovered and rifled in 1780. 
6 [ 81 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LXXXI 

The double night of ages, and of her, 
Night^s daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 
All round us ; we but feel our way to err : 
The ocean hatli his chart, the stars their map. 
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
But Eome is as the desert where we steer 
Stumbling o^er recollections ; now we clap 
Our hands, and cry ' Eureka ! ^ it is clear — 
When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. 

LXXXII 

Alas, the lofty city ! and alas. 
The trebly hundred triumphs I and the day 
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass 
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away ! 
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Yirgirs lay. 
And Livy's pictured page ! — but these shall be 
Her resurrection ; all beside — decay. 
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see 
That brightness in her eye she bore when Eome was free ! 

LXXXIII 

thou, whose chariot rolFd on Fortune's wheel. 
Triumphant Sylla ! thou, who didst subdue 
Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel 
The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due 
[ 82 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew 
O^er prostrate Asia ; — thou, who with thy frown 
Annihilated senates — Eoman_, too, 
With all thy vices, for tliou didst lay down 
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown, 

LXXXIV 
The dictatorial wreath, — couldst thou divine 
To what would one day dwindle that which made 
Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine 
By aught than Eonians Rome should thus be laid ? 
She who was named Eternal, and arrayed 
Her warriors but to conquer — she who veiFd 
Earth with her haughty shadow, and disj^lay^d, 
Until the o^er-canopied horizon faiPd, 
Her rushing wings — Oh, she who was Almighty haiFd ! 

Lxxxvni 

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome ! ^ 
She-wolf, whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 
Where, as a monument of antique art. 
Thou standest ; mother of the mighty heart, 
Which the great founder suckM from thy wild teat, 
ScorchM by the Roman Jove^s ethereal dart, 
And thy limbs black with lightning — dost thou yet 
Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? 

1 According to Cicero, the bronze statute of the wolf was struck by 
lightning. 

[ 83 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 



XCVI 

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be^ 
And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm^d and undefiled ? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild, 
Deep in the unpruned forest, "'midst the roar 
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington ? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast^ or Europe no such shore? 

XCVII 

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime. 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been 
To Freedom^s cause, in every age and clime ; 
Because the deadly days Avhich we have seen, 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, 
And the base pageant last upon the scene. 
Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips lifers tree, and dooms man^s worst — his second 
fall. 

XCVIII 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying, 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind ; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying. 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind : 
[ 84 ] 




3 S. 

> 2, 



^ 

•^ 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind. 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth. 
But the sap lasts, — and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North ; 
So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 

XCIX 

There is a stern round tower of other days,^ 
Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 
Such as an army^s baffled strength delays. 
Standing with half its battlements alone. 
And with two thousand years of ivy grown, 
The garland of eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by time overthrown ; — 
What was this tower of strength ? within its cave 
What treasure lay so locked, so hid ? A woman^s grave. 



But who was she, the lady of the dead, 
Tomb\l in a palace ? Was she chaste and fair ? 
Worthy a king's — or more — a Roman's bed ? 
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ? 
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ? 
How lived, how loved, how died she ? Was she not 
So honoured — and conspicuously there. 
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot. 
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ? 

^ Tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Appiaa Way, used as a fortress in the 
Middle Ages. 

[ 85 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

CI 

Was she as those who love their lords, or they 
Who love the lords of others ? — such have been 
Even in the olden time, Eome^s annals saj. 
Was she a matron of Cornelians mien, 
Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen. 
Profuse of joy — or ''gainst it did she war, 
Inveterate in virtue ? Did she lean 
To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar 
Love from amongst her griefs ? — for such the affections 
are. 

CII 

Perchance she died in youth : it may be, bow'd 
With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb 
That weighM upon her gentle dust, a cloud 
Might gather o^'er her beauty,' and a gloom 
In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom 
Heaven gives its favourites — early death ; yet shed 
A sunset charm around her, and illume 
With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead. 
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red. 



cm 

Perchance she died in age — surviving all. 
Charms, kindred, children — with the silver gray 
On her long tresses, which might yet recall, 
It may be, still a something of the day 
[ 86 ] 









5 ^ 







THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

When tliey were braided, and her proud array 
And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed 
By Eome. — But whither would Conjecture stray ? 
Tims mucli alone we know — Metella died, 
The wealthiest Eoman's wife. Behold his love or pride ! 



CIV 

I know not why, but standing thus by thee, 
It seems as if I had thine inmate known. 
Thou tomb ! and other days come back on me 
With recollected music, though the tone 
Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind ; 
Yet could I seat me by this ivied stone 
Till I had bodied forth the heated mind 
Eorms from the floating wreck which Euin leaves behind; 



CV 

And from the planks, far shattered o'er the rocks, 
Built me a little bark of hope, once more 
To battle with the ocean and the shocks 
Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar 
Which rushes on the solitary shore 
Where all lies foundered that was ever dear. 
But could I gather from the wave-worn store 
Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer ? 
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. 
[ 87 1 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 



CVI 

Then let the winds liowl on ! their harmony 
Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 
The sound shall temper with the owlets^ cry. 
As I now hear them, in the fading liglit 
Dim o^er the bird of darkness'' native site. 
Answering each other on the Palatine, 
AVith their large eyes all glistening gray and bright. 
And sailing pinions. Upon such a shrine 
What are our petty griefs ? — let me not number mine. 

CVII 

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown 
Matted and massM together, hillocks heap'd 
On what were chambers, arch crush^l, column strown 
In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd 
In subterranean damps where the owl peep\i. 
Deeming it midnight : — Temples, baths, or halls ? 
Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reapM 
Prom her research hath been, that these are walls — 
Behold the Imperial Mount ! 't is thus the mighty falh 

CVIII 

There is the moral of all human tales ; 
''T is but the same rehearsal of the past, 
Pirst Preedom and then Glory — when that fails. 
Wealth, vice, corruption, — barbarism at last. 
[ 88 ] 



/JOLUMN in Roman Forum, named in 1818 Column of Phocas. Excavations 
in 1904 reveal an earlier date by four centuries, and place it in the time of 
Diocletian (a.d. 284). 




Tully was not so eloquent as thou. 

Thou nameless column with the buried base. " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza ex, p. 89. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

And History, with all her volumes vast. 
Hath but one page, — 't is better written here 
Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd 
All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear. 
Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask. — Away with words, 
draw near, 

CIX 

Admire, exult — despise — laugh, weep, — for here 
There is such matter for all feeling : — Man ! 
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear. 
Ages and realms are crowded in this span. 
This mountain, whose obliterated plan 
The pyramid of empires pinnacled. 
Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van 
Till the sun's rays with added flame were filPd ! 
Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build ? 



CX 

Tully was not so eloquent as thou. 
Thou nameless column with the buried base ! ^ 
What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow ? 
Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place. 
Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face, 

1 This column ceased to be " nameless " in 1818 when it received the 
name by which it has since been called— Column of Phocas. ArchjEolo- 
gists in 1904, owing to explorations round the "buried base/' have decided 
that it belongs to the time of Diocletian, a. d. 284, and not Phocas. 

[ 89 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Titus' or Trajan's ? No — 't is that of Time : 
Triumph^ arch, pillar, all he doth displace 
Scoffing ; and apostolic statues climb ^ 
To crush the imperial urn whose ashes slept sublime, 

CXI 

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Eome, 
And looking to the stars. They had contained 
A spirit which with these would find a home. 
The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd, 
The Eoman glo*be, for after none sustainM 
But yielded back his conquests : he was more 
Tlian a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd 
With household blood and wine, serenely wore 
His sovereign virtues — still we Trajan's name adore. 

CXII 

Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place ^ 
Where Ptome embraced her heroes ? where the steep 
Tarpeian, fittest goal of Treason's race. 
The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap 
Cured all ambition ? Did the conquerors heap 
Their spoils here ? Yes ; and in yon field below, 
A thousand years of silenced factions sleep — 
The Forum, where the immortal accents glow. 
And still the eloquent air breathes — burns with Cicero ! 

1 The statue of St. Peter supplants that of Trajan on the top of 
Trajan's column. 

2 The temple of Jupiter probably stood on the southeast section of the 
Capitoline Hill, the present site of Palazzo Cafl'arelli. 

[ 90 ] 




o 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 



CXIII 

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood : 
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled, 
Erom the first hour of empire in the bud 
To that when further worlds to conquer MVd ; 
But long before had Freedom's face been veiFd, 
And Anarchy assumed her attributes ; 
Till every lawless soldier who assaiFd 
Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes, 
Or raised tlie venal voice of baser prostitutes. 



CXIV 

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name. 
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, 
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame — 
The friend of Petrarch — hope of Italy — 
Eienzi ! last of Eomans ! While the tree 
Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf. 
Even for thy tomb a garland let it be — 
Tlie forum's champion, and the people's chief — 
Her new-born Numa thou — with reign, alas, too brief. 

cxv 

Egeria, sweet creation of some heart 
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair 
As thine ideal breast ! w^hate'er thou art 
Or wert, — a young Aurora of the air, 

[ 91 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

The nympholepsj of some fond despair ; 
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, 
Who found a more than common votary there 
Too much adoring ; whatsoever thy birth, 
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. 



CXVI 

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face 
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place. 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art's works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep, 
PrisonM in marble ; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy creep. 



CXVII 

Fantastically tangled. The green hills 
Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass 
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills 
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass ; 
Plowers fresh in hue, and many in their class. 
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes 
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass ; 
The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, 
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies. 
[ 92 ] 



'^ 



'5 = 1 

S ■>^' '~«: S 

« s- -^ ^ 

5f t C ^ 

o c s » 

- ?■ c- -^ 

- ^ S • S- 




THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CXVIII 

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, 
Egeria ! thj all heavenly bosom beating 
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover. 
The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting 
With her most starry canopy ; and seating 
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell ? 
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting 
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell 
Haunted by holy Love — the earliest oracle ! 

CXIX 

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying. 
Blend a celestial with a human heart ; 
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, 
Share with immortal transports ? Could thine art 
Make them indeed immortal, and impart 
The purity of heaven to earthly joys, 
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart — 
The dull satiety which all destroys — 
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys ? 

cxx 

Alas ! our young affections run to waste. 
Or water but the desert ; whence arise 
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, 
Eank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, 
[ 93 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, 
And trees whose gums are poison ; — such the plants 
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies 
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. 



CXXI 

Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — 
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, 
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart. 
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; 
The mind hath made tliee, as it peopled heaven. 
Even with its own desiring phantasy. 
And to a thought such shape and image given. 
As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied 
wrung — and riven. 

CXXII 

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased. 
And fevers into false creation : — where, 
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair ? 
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare 
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, 
The unreacVd Paradise of our despair, 
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, 
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again ? 

[ 94 ] 



T 



\RPEIAN Rock, Rome. 




" The steep 
Tar peian, fittest goal of Treasons race. 
The promontory ivhence the Traitor''s Leap 
Cured all ambition.'" 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza cxii, p. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CXXTII 

Who loves, raves — 't is youth^s frenzy ; but the cure 
Is bitterer still. As charm by charm unwinds 
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind^s 
Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds 
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
Eeaping the whirlwind from the oftsown winds ; 
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun. 
Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most undone. 

CXXIV 

We wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
Sick — sick ; unfound the boon — unslaked the thirst. 
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,, 
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
But all too late, — so are we doubly curst. 
Love, fame, ambition, avarice — ''t is the same, 
Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst — 
For all are meteors with a different name, 
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. 

cxxv 

Pew — none — find what they love or could have loved. 
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong 
Necessity of loving, have removed 
Antipathies — but to recur, ere long, 

[ 95 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

EnvenomM with irrevocable wrong ; 
And Circumstance_, that nnspiritual god 
And miscreator, makes and helps along 
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod, 
"Whose touch turns Hope to dust, — the dust we all have 
trod. 

CXXVI 

Our life is a false nature, ^t is not in 
The harmony of things, — this hard decree. 
This uneradicable taint of sin. 
This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree 
Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be 
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew — 
Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see — 
And worse, the woes we see not — which throb through 
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new. 



CXXVII 

Yet let us ponder boldly ; 't is a base 
Abandonment of reason to resign 
Our right of thought, our last and only place 
Of refuge — this, at least, shall still be mine. 
Though from our birth the faculty divine 
Is chained and tortured — cabinM, cribbM, confined, 
And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 
Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. 

[ 96 ] 



gTATUE of the Laocoon, 
Vatican Gallery at Rome. 



'■'■ Turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon s torture dignifying pain — 
A father'' s love and mortal's agony 
With an immortal's patience blending .'''' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza clx, p. 104. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CXXVIII 

Arches on arches ! as it were that Eome, 
Collecting the chief trophies of her line, 
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, — 
Her Coliseum stands ; the moonbeams shine 
As 't were its natural torches, for divine 
Should be the light which streams here, to illume 
This long-explored but still exhaustless mine 
Of contemplation ; and the azure gloom 
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume 

CXXIX 

Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven. 
Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument. 
And shadows forth its glory. There is given 
Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, 
A spirit's feeling ; and where he hath leant 
His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power 
And magic in the ruin'd battlement. 
For which the palace of the present hour 
Must yield ifs pomp and wait till ages are its dower. 



CXXXIX 

And here the buzz of eager natioijs ran. 
In murmur'd pity or loud-roar'd applause. 
As man was slaughtered by his fellow man. 
And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because 
7 [ 97 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Such were the bloody Circus^ genial laws. 
And the imperial pleasure. — Wherefore not ? 
What matters Tvhere we fall to fill the maws 
Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? 
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot. 



CXL 



I see before me the Gladiator lie : 
He leans upon his hand — his manly brow 
Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
And his drooped head sinks gradually low — 
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
The arena swims around him — he is gone. 
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which haiFd the wretch who 
won. 

CXLI 

He heard it, but he heeded not — his eyes 
Were with his heart and that was far away ; 
He reckM not of the life he lost nor prize. 
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay. 
There were his young barbarians all at play, 
There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, 
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday — 
All this rushM with his blood. — Shall he expire 
And unavenged ? — Arise ! ye Goths, and glut your ire ! 
[ 98 ] 



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THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CXLII 

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam ; 
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways. 
And roar'd or murmur^ like a mountain stream 
Dashing or winding as its torrent strays ; 
Here, where the Eoman millions' hlame or praise 
Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, 
My voice sounds much, and fall the stars' faint rays 
On the arena void — seats crushed — walls bow'd — 
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. 

CXLIII 

A ruin — yet what ruin ! From its mass 
Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd ; 
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass. 
And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. 
Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ? 
Alas ! developed, opens the decay, 
When the colossal fabric's form is near'd : 
It will not bear the brightness of the day. 
Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. 

CXLIV 

But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch and gently pauses there; 
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time. 
And the low night-breeze waves along the air 

[ 99 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

The garland forest,^ which the gray walls wear 
Like laurels on the bald first Csesar's head ; 
When the light shines serene but doth not glare, 
Then in this magic circle raise the dead : 
Heroes have trod this spot — ^t is on their dust ye tread. 

CXLV 
" While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand ; 
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall ; 
And when Rome falls — the World/^ From our own 

land 
Thus spake the pilgrims o^er this mighty wall 
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call 
Ancient ; and these three mortal things are still 
On their foundations, and unalterM all ; 
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill. 
The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will. 

CXLVI 
Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime — 
Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods, 
From Jove to Jesus — spared and blest by time ; 
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods 
Arch, empire, each thing round tliee, and man plods 
His way through thorns to ashes — glorious dome ! 
Shalt thou not last ? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods 
Siuver upon thee — sanctuary and home 
Of art and piety — Pantheon ! — pride of Rome ! 

^ Tlie " garlaud forest " of shrubs and wild flowers has now been re- 
moved, lest the action of the roots should hasten the disintegration of the 
ruins. 

[ 100 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CXLVII 

Eelic of nobler days and noblest arts ! 
Despoird, yet perfect^ with tliy circle spreads 
A holiness a])pealing to all hearts — 
To art a model ; and to him who treads 
Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds 
Her light through thy sole aperture ; to those 
Who worship, here are altars for their beads ; 
And they who feel for genius may repose 
Their eyes on honourM forms whose busts around them 
close. 



CLIII 
But lo, the dome, the vast and wondrous dome 
To which Diana^s marvel was a cell, 
Christ^s mighty shrine above his martyr^s tomb! 
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle — 
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell 
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade ; 
I have beheld Sophia^s bright roofs swell 
Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed 
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd ; 

CLIV 

But thou, of temples old or altars new) 
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee — 
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 
Since Zion's desolation, when that He 
[ 101 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Porsook his former citj^, what could be. 
Of earthly structures, in his honour piled 
Of a sublimer aspect ? Majesty, 
Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled 
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 



CLV 

Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; 
And why ? it is not lessenM ; but thy mind, 
Expanded by the genius of the spot. 
Has grown colossal, and can only find 
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined 
Thy nopes of immortality ; and thou 
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined. 
See thy God face to face as tliou dost now 
His Holy of Plolies, nor be blasted by his brow. 

CLVI 

Thou movest — but increasing with the advance, 
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, 
Deceived by its gigantic elegance ; 
Vastness whicli grows, but grows to harmonise — 
All musical in its immensities ; 
Eich marbles, richer painting, shrines where flame 
The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which vies 
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame 
Sits on the firm-set ground — and this the clouds must 
claim. 

[ 102 ] 



R 



EAR View of St. Peter's, with view of 
dome designed by Michel Angelo. 




But lo, the dome, the vast and loondrous dome 

To which Diana s marvel was a cell, 

ChrisVs miffhty shrine above his marti/r's tomb ! " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza cliii, p. 101. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CLVII 

Thou seest not all ; but piecemeal thou must break 
To separate contemplation the great whole ; 
And as the ocean many bays will make. 
That ask the eye — so here condense thy soul 
To more immediate objects, and control 
Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart 
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll 
In mighty graduations, part by part. 
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, 

CLVIII 

Not by its fault — but thine. Our outward sense 
Is but of gradual grasp : and as it is 
That what we have of feeling most intense 
Outstrips our faint expression ; even so this 
Outshining and overwhelming edifice 
Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great 
Defies at first our Nature's littleness, 
Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate 
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate. 

CLIX 

Then pause, and be enlighten^'d ; there is more 
In such a survey than the sating gaze 
Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore 
The worship of the place, or the mere praise 
[ 103 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Of art and its great masters_, who could raise 
What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan; 
The fountain of sublimity displays 
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can. 

CLX 

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see 
Laocoon^s torture dignifying pain — 
A father's love and mortal's agony 
With an immortal's patience blending. Yain 
The struggle ; vain, against the coiling strain 
And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp, 
The old man's clench ; the long envenom'd chain 
Eivets the living links, the enormous asp 
Enforces pang on pang,, and stifles gasp on gasp. 

CLXI 

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow. 
The God of life and poesy and light, — 
The Sun in human limbs array 'd, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
The shaft hath just been shot — the arrow bright 
With an immortal's vengeance ; in his eye 
And nostril beautiful disdain and might 
And majesty flash their full lightnings by. 
Developing in that one glance the Deity. 

*»[ 104^ ] 



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THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CLXII 

But in his delicate form — a dream of Love, 
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast 
Long'd for a deathless lover from above 
And madden'd in that vision — are exprest 
All that ideal beauty ever blessed 
The mind with in its most unearthly mood. 
When each conception was a heavenly guest — 
A ray of immortality — and stood, 
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god ! 

CLXIII 
And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven ' 
The fire which we endure, it was repaid 
By him to whom the energy was given 
AVhich this poetic marble hath array'd 
With an eternal glory — which, if made 
By human hands, is not of human thought : 
And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid 
One ringlet in the dust; nor hath it caught 
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 't was 
wrought. 



CLXXIII 
Lo, Nemi ! navelPd in the woody hills 
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears 
The oak from his foundation, and which spills 
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears 

[ 105 1 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares 
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake ; — 
And, calm as cherishM hate, its surface wears 
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, 
All coiFd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. 

CLXXIV 

And near Albano's scarce divided waves 
Shine from a sister valley ; and afar 
Tile Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves 
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 
*" Arms and the Man,'' whose re-ascending star 
Eose o^er an empire : but beneath thy right 
TuUy reposed from Rome ; and where yon bar 
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight 
The Sabine farm was tilFd, the weary bard^s delight. 

CLXXV 

But I forget. — My Pilgrim's shrine is won, 
And he and I must part — so let it be : 
His task and mine alike are nearly done; 
Yet once more let us look upon the sea ; 
The midland ocean breaks on him and me, 
And from the Alban Mount we now behold 
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we 
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold 
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolFd 

[ 106 ] 



A POLLO Belvedere, in Vatican 
Gallery at Rome. 




'* Lord of the tinerring bow. 
The God of life and poes^y and light, — 
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight.'''' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza clxi, p. 104, 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 



CLXXVI 

Upon the blue Symplegades. Long years — 
Long, though not very many — since have done 
Their work on both ; some suffering and some tears 
Have left us nearly where we had begun : 
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run ; 
We have had our reward, and it is here^ — 
That we can yet feel gladdenM by the sun, 
And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear 
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 

CLXXVII 

Oh, that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 
With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
That I might all forget the human race, 
And, hating no one, love but only her ! 
Ye Elements, in whose ennobling stir 
I feel myself exalted, can ye not 
Accord me such a being ? Do I err 
In deeming such inhabit many a spot. 
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot ? 

CLXXVIII 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes. 
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : 
[107] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I love not Man the less, but Nature more, 
From tliese our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. 



CLXXIX 

Eoll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll ! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control 
Stops with the shore ; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own. 
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelFd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. 



CLXXX 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise. 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 
His petty hope in some near port or bay. 
And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 
[ 108 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CLXXXI 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations qaake 
And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake. 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada^s pride or spoils of Trafalgar. 

CLXXXII 

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Eome, Carthage, what are they ? 
Thy waters washM them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou. 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves^ play ; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow ; 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 

CLXXXIII 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time. 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
[ 109 ] 



WITH BVRON IN ITALY 

Dark-heaving ; — boundless,, endless^ and sublime — 
The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 



CLXXXIV 

And I have loved thee. Ocean ! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror — ''t was a pleasing fear, 
For I was as it were a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 



CLXXXV 

My task is done — my song hath ceased — my theme 
Has died into an echo ; it is fit 
The spell should break of this protracted dream. 
The torch shall be extinguish^! which hath lit 
My midnight lamp — and what is writ, is writ, — 
Would it were worthier ! but I am not now 
That which I have been — and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me — and the glow 
Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. 
[110 ] 



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O 



w 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

CLXXXVI 

Farewell ! a word that must be_, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell ! 
Ye, who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene 
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell 
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell 
A single recollection, not in vain 
He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; 
Farewell ! with him alone may rest the pain. 
If such there were — with you, the moral of his strain ! 



TO JOHN MUEEAY 

Yenice, October 23, 1817- 

Mr. Whistlecraft ^ has no greater admirer than myself. 
I have written a story in 89 stanzas, in imitation of him, 
called Beppo (the short name for Giuseppe, that is, the 
Joe of the Italian Joseph), which I shall throw you into 
the balance of the 4*** Canto to help you round to your 
money; but you perhaps had better publish it anony- 
mously; but this we will see to by and bye. 

With regard to a future large edition, you may print 
all, or any thing, except English Bards^ to the republica- 
tion of which at 7io time will I consent. I would not 
reprint them on any consideration. I don't think them 

1 No7n-de-plttme of John Hookham Frerc 

2 " English Bcirds and Scotch Reviewers," written by Byron at the age 
of 21, was full of injustice and indiscriminate abuse, which he now regrets. 

[ 111 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

good for much, even in point of poetry; and, as to other 
things, you are to recollect that I gave up the publication 
on account of the Hollands, and I do not think that any 
time or circumstances can neutralise my suppression. 
Add to which, that, after being on terms with almost all 
the bards and Critics of the day, it would be savage at 
any time, but worst of all now when in another countrij to 
revive this foolish lampoon. . . . 

The Eeview of Manfred came very safely, and I am 
much pleased with it. It is odd that they should say 
(that is, somebody in a magazine whom the Edinburgh 
controverts) that it was taken from Marlow's Faustus, 
which I never read nor saw. An American, who came 
the other day from Germany, told Mr. Hobhouse that 
Manfred was taken from Goethe's Faitst. The devil may 
take both the Faustuses, German and English, — I have 
taken neithef. 



EHOM ''BEPPO: A VENETIAN STOEY^ 

X 

Of all the places where the Carnival 
Was most facetious in the days of yore. 

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball. 

And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more 

Than I have time to tell now, or at all, 
Yenice the bell from every city bore, — 

And at the moment when I fix my story, 

That sea-born city was in all her glory. 

[ 112 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

XI 

They Ve pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, 

Black eyes, archM brows, and sweet expressions still ; 

Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, 
In ancient arts by moderns mimickM ill; 

And like so many Venuses of Titian's 

(The best 's at Morence — see it, if ye will), 

They look when leaning over the balcony. 

Or steppM from out a picture by Giorgione, 

XII 
Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best ; 

And when you to Manfrini's palace go. 
That picture (howsoever fine the rest) 

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show ; 
It may perhaps be also to ?/our zest, 

And that 's the cause I rhyme upon it so : 
'T is but a portrait of his son, and wife, 
And self; but suck a woman ! love in life ! 

XIII 
Love in full life and length, not love ideal. 

No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name. 
But something better still, so very real, 

That the sweet model must have been the same ; 
A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal, 

Wer 't not impossible, besides a shame. 
The face recalls some face, as 't were with pain. 
You once have seen, but ne'er will see again ; 

8 [ US -] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XIV 
One of those forms whicli flit by us, when we 

Are young and fix our eyes on every face ; 
And, oh ! the loveliness at times we see 

In momentary gliding, the soft grace. 
The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree. 

In many a nameless being we retrace, 
"Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know. 
Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below. 

XV 

I said that like a picture by Giorgione 
Venetian women were, and so they are. 

Particularly seen from a balcony 

(For beauty 's sometimes best set off afar). 

And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni, 

They peep from out the blind, or o^er the bar; 

And, truth to say, they ''re mostly very pretty, 

And rather like to show it, more 's the pity 1 

XVI 

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs. 

Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter^ 
Which flies on wings of light-heeFd Mercuries 

V7ho do such things because they know no better; 
And then, God knows what mischief may arise 

When love links two young people in one fetter. 
Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, 
Elopements, broken vows and hearts and heads. 
[ 114 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

XYII 
Sliakspeare described the sex in Desdemona 

As very fair, but yet suspect in fame. 
And to this day from Venice to Yerona 

Such matters may be probably the same. 
Except that since those times was never known a 

Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame 
To suffocate a wife no more than twenty, 
Because she had a ^' cavalier servente/' 

XVIII 

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) 

Is of a fair complexion altogether. 
Not like that sooty devil of Othello's 

Which smothers women in a bed of feather. 
But worthier of these much more jolly fellows; 

When weary of the matrimonial tether 
His head for such a wife no mortal bothers. 
But takes at once another, or another's. 

XIX 

Didst ever see a Gondola ? For fear 

You should not, I '11 describe it you exactly : 

'T is a long cover'd boat that 's common here. 
Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly; 

Eow'd by two rowers, each call'd ''Gondolier," 
It glides along the water looking blackly. 

Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe. 

Where none can make out what you say or do. 
[ 115 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XX 

And up and down the long canals they go. 
And under the Eialto shoot along, 

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow ; 
And round the theatres, a sable throng, 

They wait in their dusk livery of woe, — 
But not to them do woful things belong, 

For sometimes they contain a deal of fun, 

Like mourning coaches when the funeral ''s done. 



XLI 
With all its sinful doings, I must say, 

That Italy 's a pleasant place to me, 
Wlio love to see the Sun shine every day. 

And vines (not naiFd to walls) from tree to tree 
FestoonM, much like the back scene of a play 

Or melodrame, which people flock to see. 
When the first act is ended by a dance 
In vineyards copied from the south of France. 

XLII 
I like on Autumn evenings to ride out, 

Without being forced to bid my groom be sure 
My cloak is round his middle strapped about. 

Because the skies are not the most secure ; 
I know too that, if stopped upon my route 

Where the green alleys windingly allure, 
Eeeling with grapes red wagons choke the way, — 
In England ^t would be dung, dust, or a dray. 
[ 116 ] 



IVTONUMENT to Niccolo Machiavelli, in Santa 
Croce, Florence. Designed by Spinazzi. 




Here Machiavellts earth return d to lohence it rose. " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza liv, p. 71. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

XLIII 
I also like to dine on becaficas, 

To see the Sun set^ sure he ^11 rise to-morrow. 
Not through a misty morning twinkling weak as 

A drunken man^s dead eye in maudlin sorrow. 
But with all Heaven t' himself; that day will break as 

Beauteous as cloudless, nor be forced to borrow 
That sort of farthing candlelight which glimmers 
Where reeking London's smoky caldron simmers. 

XLIV 
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, 

Which melts like kisses from a female mouth, 
And sounds as if it should be writ on satin, 

With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, 
And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in 

That not a single accent seems uncouth, 
Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural. 
Which we 're obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all. 

XLV 
I like the women too (forgive my folly). 

From the rich peasant cheek of ruddy bronze. 
And large black eyes that flash on you a volley 

Of rays tliat say a thousand things at once. 
To the high dama's brow, more melancholy. 

But clear, and with a wild and liquid glance. 
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes. 
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies. 
[ 117 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XLYI 

Eve of the land which still is Paradise ! 

Italian beauty ! didst thou not inspire 
Eaphael, who died in thy embrace, and vies 

With all we know of Heaven, or can desire, 
In what he hath bequeathe us ? — in what guise, 

Though flashing from the fervour of the lyre, 
Would words describe thy past and present ghjw, 
While yet Canova can create below? 

XLVII 
"England! with all thy faults I love thee still,'' 

I said at Calais and have not forgot it ; 
I like to speak and lucubrate my fill ; 

I like the government (but that is not it) ; 
I like the freedom of the press and quill ; 

I like the Habeas Corpus (when we Ve got it) ; 
I like a parliamentary debate. 
Particularly when 't is not too late ; 

XL VIII 
I like the taxes, when they 're not too many ; 

I like a seacoal fire, when not too dear ; 
I like a beefsteak, too, as well as any ; 

Have no objection to a pot of beer ; 
I like the weather, when it is not rainy, 

That is, I like two months of every year. 
And so God save the Eegent, Church, and King ! 
Which means that I like all and every thing. 
[ 118 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

XLIX 
Our standing army, and disbanded seamen, 

Poor's rate, Reform, mj own, the nation's debt. 
Our little riots just to show we're free men, 

Our trifling bankruptcies in the Gazette, 
Our cloudy climate, and our chilly women. 

All these I can forgive, and those forget. 
And greatly venerate our recent glories. 
And wish they were not owing to the Tories. 

LXXV 
One hates an author that 's all autJior, fellows 

In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink. 
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous. 

One don't know what to say to them, or think. 
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows ; 

Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink 
Are preferable to these shreds of paper. 
These unquencli'd snuffings of the midnight taper. 

LXXVI 
Of these same we see several, and of others. 

Men of the world, who know the world like men, 
Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers. 

Who think of something else besides the pen ; 
But for the children of the " mighty mother's,'^ 

The would-be wits and can't-be gentlemen, 
I leave them to their daily "tea is ready," 
Smug coterie, and literary lady. 

[ 119 1 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LXXVII 

The poor dear Mussulwomen whom I mention 
Have none of these instructive pleasant people. 

And one to them would seem a new invention, 
Unknown as bells within a Turkish steeple ; 

I think \ would almost be worth while to pension 
(Though best-sown projects very often reap ill) 

A missionary author, just to preach 

Our Christian usage of the parts of speech. 

LXXVIII 

No chemistry for them unfolds her gases. 
No metaphysics are let loose in lectures. 

No circulating library amasses 

Eeligious novels, moral tales, and strictures 

Upon the living maimers, as they pass us ; 
No exhibition glares with annual pictures; 

They stare not on the stars from out their attics. 

Nor deal (thank God for that !) in mathematics. 

LXXIX 

"Why I thank God for tliat is no great matter, 
I have my reasons, you no doubt suppose. 

And as, perhaps, they would not highly flatter, 
I Tl keep them for my life (to come) in prose ; 

I fear I have a little turn for satire. 

And yet methinks the older that one grows 

Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter 

Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after. 
[ 120 ] 



M 



ONUMENT to Alfieri, in Santa Croce, 
Florence, Designed by Canova. 




" Here repose 
Angela'' Sy Alfieri" s hones."'' 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, 8tai.za liv, r- 71. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

TO JAMES WEDDEEBUEN WEBSTER 

Venice, May 3P.* 1818. 

Dear Webster, — I am truly sorry to hear of your 
domestic misfortune, and, as I know the inefficacy of 
words, shall turn from the subject. 

I am not even aware of your return to France, where I 
presume that you are a resident. For my own part after 
going down to Florence and Eome last year, I returned to 
Venice, where I have since remained — and may probably 
continue to remain for some years — being partial to the 
people, the language, and the habits of life ; there are few 
English here, and those mostly birds of passage, excepting 
one or two v/ho are domesticated like myself. 

I have the Palazzo Mocenigo on the CanaF Grande for 
three years to come, and a pretty Villa in the Euganean 
hills for the Summer for nearly the same term. 

While I remain in the city itself, I keep my horses on 
an Island with a good beach, about half a mile from the 
town, so that I get a gallop of some miles along the shore 
of the Adriatic daily ; the Stables belong to the Fortress, 
but are let on fair terms. 

I was always very partial to Venice, and it has not 
hitherto disappointed me; but I am not sure that the 
English in general would like it. I am sure that I should 
7iotj if thei/ did; but, by the benevolence of God, tliey 
prefer Florence and Naples, and do not infest us greatly 
here. In other respects it is very agreeable for Gentlemen 
of desultory habits — women — Avine — and wassail being 
all extremely fair and reasonable — theatres, etc., good — 

[ 121 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

and Society (after a time) as pleasant as an}^ where else 
(at least to my mind), if you will live with them in their 
own way — which is different, of course, from the Ultra- 
montane in some degree. 

The Climate is Italian and tliat's enough, and the 
Gondolas, etc., etc., and habits of the place make it like a 
romance, for it is by no means even now the most regular 
and correct moral city in the universe. Young and old — 
pretty and ugly — high and low — are employed in the 
laudable practice of Lovemaking — and though most 
Beauty is found amongst the middling and lower classes 
— this of course only renders their amatory habits more 
universally diffused. 

I shall be very glad to liear from or of you when you 
are so disposed — and with my best regards to Lady 
Frances — believe me, 

Yery truly yours, 

B. 

P. S. — If ever you come this way, let me have a letter 
beforehand, in case I can be of use. 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Venice, February 1, 1819. 
Dear Sir, — After one of the concluding stanzas of the 
first Canto of Don Juan, which ends with (I forget the 
number) — 

To have 

when the original is dust, 

A book, a damned bad picture, and worse bust, 
[ 122 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

insert the following stanza — 

What are the hopes of man ? Old Egypt's King 

Cheops erected tlie first Pyramid 
And largest, thinking it was just the thing 

To keep his Memory whole, and Mummy hid, 
But Somebody or Other rummaging 

Burglariously broke his Coffin's lid : 
Let not a Monument give you or me hopes. 
Since not a pinch of dust is left of Cheops ! ^ 

I have written to you several letters, some with addi- 
tions, and some upon the subject of the poem itself, which 
my cursed puritanical committee ^ have protested against 
publishing ; but we will circumvent them on tliat point in 
the end. I have not yet begun to copy out the second 
Canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and the 
discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown 
upon the first. I say all this to them as to you ; that is, 
for you to say to them, for I will have nothing underhand. 
If they had told me the poetry was bad, I would have 
acquiesced ; but they say the contrary, and then talk to me 
about morality — the first time I ever heard the word from 
any body who was not a rascal that used it for a purpose. 
I maintain that it is the most moral of poems; but if 
people won't discover the moral, tliat is their fault, not 

1 " Dou Juan," Canto I, stanza ccxix. 

2 Byron's friends, Hobhouse, Kinnaird, Scrope Davies, Moore, and 
Frcre, to whom the first Canto of " Don Juan " had been submitted, decided 
unanimously against its publication. The first two Cantos, however, were 
published on July 15, 1819, but without the name of either author or 
publisher. 

[ 123 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

mine. I have already written to beg that in any case you 
will print fifty for private distribution. I will send you 
the list of persons to whom it is to be sent afterwards. 

"Within this last fortnight I have been rather indisposed 
with a rebellion of Stomach, which would retain nothing 
(liver, I suppose), and an inability, or phantasy, not to be 
able to eat of any thing with relish but a kind of Adriatic 
fish called Scampi, which happens to be the most indigesti- 
ble of marine viands. However, within these last two 
days, I am better, and 

Very truly yours, 

Byron. 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Venice, April 6, 1819. 

Deae Sir, — The second Canto of Don Juan was sent 
on Saturday last, by post, in four packets, two of four 
and two of three sheets each, containing in all two Imndred 
and seventeen stanzas, octave measure. But I will permit 
no curtailments, except those mentioned about Castlerengh 
and the two Bohs^ in the Introduction. You sha^n^t 
make Canticles of my Cantos. The poem will please, if it 
is lively ; if it is stupid, it will fail ; but I will have none 
of your damned cutting and slashing. If you please, you 
may publish anonymously ; it will perhaps be better ; but 
I will battle my way against them all, like a Porcupine. 

So you and Mr. roscolo,^ etc., want me to undertake 

1 Part of which was finally retained. 

2 Ugo, originally Niccolo, Eoscolo (1778-1827), a native of Zaule, 
patriot, poet, dramatist, and critic. 

[ 124 ] 



jV/rOxNUiVIENT to Michel Angelo, in Scinta 
Croce, Florence. Designed by Vasari. 




" Here repose 
Angelo^s . . . hones.'"' 

— Cliilde Harold, Canto IV, stanza liv, p. Tl. 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

what you call a " great work '"? — an Epic poem^ I suppose, 
or some such pyramid. I'll try no such thing; I hate 
tasks. And then "seven or eight years" ! God send us 
all well this day three months, let alone years. If one's 
years can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a 
man had better be a ditcher. And works, too ! — is 
Childe Harold nothing? You have so many '^ divine'' 
poems, is it nothing to have written a Human one ? with- 
out any of your worn-out machinery. Why, man, I 
could have spun the thoughts of the four cantos of that 
poem ijito twenty, had I wanted to book-make, and its 
passion into as many modern tragedies. Since you want 
length, you shall have enough of Juan, for I '11 make 50 
cantos. 

And Foscolo, too ! Why does he not do something 
more than the Letters of Ortis, and a tragedy, and 
pamphlets ? He has good fifteen years more at his com- 
mand than I have : what has he done all that time ? — 
proved his Genius, doubtless, but not fixed its fame, nor 
done his utmost. 

Besides, I mean to write my best work in Italian, and 
it will take me nine years more thoroughly to master the 
language ; and then if my fancy exist, and I exist too, I will 
try what I can do really. As to the Estimation of the Eng- 
lish which you talk of, let them calculate what it is worth, 
before they insult me with their insolent condescension. 

I have not written for their pleasure. If they are 

pleased, it is that they chose to be so; I have never 

flattered their opinions, nor their pride; nor will I. 

Neither will I make " Ladies' books '^ al dilettar lefemine 

[ 125 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

e la plebe. I have written from the fulness of my mind, 
from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not 
for their "svreet voices/'' 

I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few 
Scribblers have had more of it ; and if I chose to swerve 
into their paths, I couhl retain it, or resume it, or increase 
it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye ; and though I buy 
with ye and sell with ye, and talk with ye, I will neither 
eat with ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made 
me, without my search, a species of popular Idol ; they, 
without reason or judgment, beyond the caprice of their 
good pleasure, threw down the Image from its pedestal ; it 
was not broken with the fall, and they would, it seems, 
again replace it — but they shall not. 

You ask about my health : about the beginning of the 
year I was in a state of great exliaustion, attended by such 
debility of Stomach that nothing remained upon it ; and I 
was obliged to reform my " way of life,^'' which was con- 
ducting me from the ^'yellow leaf^' to the Ground, with 
all deliberate speed. I am better in health and morals, 
and very much yours ever, 

Bn. 



TO JOHN MUEEAY 

Bologna, June 7, 1819. 

Dear Sir, — Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a 

few days ago from Ferrara. It will therefore be idle in 

him or you to wait for any further answers or returns of 

proofs from Venice, as I have directed that no English 

[ 126 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

letters be sent after me. The publication can be pro- 
ceeded in without, and I am already sick of your remarks, 
to which I think not the least attention ought to be paid. 

Tell Mr. Hobhouse that, since I wrote to him^ I had 
availed myself of my Eerrara letters, and found the society 
much younger and better there than at Venice. I was 
very much pleased with the little the shortness of my stay 
permitted me to see of the Gonfaloniere Count Mosti, and 
his family and friends in general. 

I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous 
Domenichino and Guido,^ both of which are superlative. 
I afterwards went to the beautiful Cemetery of Bologna, 
beyond the walls, and found, besides the superb Burial- 
ground, an original of a Custode, wdio reminded me of the 
grave-digger in Hamlet. lie has a collection of Capuchins' 
skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of 
them, said, " This was Brother Desiderio Berro^ who died at 
forty — one of my best friends. I begged his head of his 
brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. I put it 
in lime and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in 
excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest 
fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went, he brought joy ; 
and when any one was melancholy, the sight of him was 
enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so 
actively, you might have taken him for a dancer — he 
joked — he laughed — oh ! he was such a Frate as I never 
saw before, nor ever shall again ! '' 

1 Probably Domenichino's " Martyrdom of St. Peter, the Dominican," 
or bis " Martyrdom of St. Agnes," and Guide's " Slaughter of the 
laaocents." 

[ 127 ] 



WITH BYRON IxN ITALY 

He told me that he had himself planted all the Cypresses 
in the Cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to 
them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had 
buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some 
older monuments, there was that of a Eoman girl of 
twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a Princess 
Barberini, dead two centuries ago : he said tliat, on opening 
her grave, they had found her hair complete, and " as 
yellow as gold.''' Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased 
me more than the more splendid monuments of Bologna ; 
for instance : — 

" Martini Luigi 
Implora pace." 

" Lucrczia Picini 

Implora eteriia quiete." 

Can any thing be more full of pathos ? Those few words 
say all that can be said or sought : the dead had had 
enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they 
^^ implore!' There is all the helplessness, and humble 
hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave 
— " implora pace." I hope, whoever may survive me, and 
shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the 
Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those 
two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't 
think of "pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or 
Blunderbuss Hall.'' I am sure my bones would not rest 
in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that 
country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on 
my deathbed^ could I suppose that any of my friends 
[ 128 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

would be base enough to convey my carcase back to your 
soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could 
help it. 

ODE ON VENICE 

I 

Venice ! Venice ! when thy marble walls 
Are level with the waters, there shall be 
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, 

A loud lament along the sweeping sea ! 
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee. 
What should thy sons do ? — anything but weep : 
And yet they only murmur in their sleep. 
In contrast with their fathers — as the slime. 
The dull green ooze of the receding deep. 
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam. 
That drives the sailor shipless to his home. 
Are they to those that were ; and thus they creep. 
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. 
O agony ! that centuries should reap 
No mellower harvest ! Thirteen hundred years 
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears ; 
And every monument the stranger meets. 
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets. 
And even the Lion all subdued appears. 
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum. 
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats 
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along 
The soft waves, once all musical to song, 
9 [ 129 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng 
Of gondolas — and to the busy hum 
Of cheerful creatures^ whose most sinful deeds 
Were but the overheating of the heart. 
And flow of too much happiness, which needs 
The aid of age to turn its course apart 
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. 
But these are better than the gloomy errors. 
The weeds of nations in their last decay. 
When "Vice walks forth with her unsoftenM terrors. 
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay ; 
And Hope is nothing but a false delay. 
The sick mane's lightning half an hour ere death. 
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, 
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning 
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning. 
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away ; 
Yet so relieving the o^er-tortured clay. 
To him appears renewal of his breath. 
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain ; — 
And then he talks of life, and how again 
He feels his spirits soaring — albeit weak. 
And of the fresher air, which he would seek ; 
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps. 
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps. 
And so the film comes o'er him — and the dizzy 
Chamber swims round and round — and shadows busy. 
At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam. 
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, 
[ 180 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

And all is ice and blackness^ — and the earth 
That which it was the moment ere our birth. 

II 

There is no hope for nations ! Search the page 

Of many thousand years — the daily scene. 
The flow and ebb of each recurring age. 
The everlasting to he which hath heeriy 
Hath taught us nought or little : still we lean 
On things tliat rot beneath our weight, and wear 
Our strength away in wrestling with the air ; 
For 't is our nature strikes us down : the beasts 
Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts 
Are of as high an order — they must go 
Even wdiere their driver goads them, though to slaughter. 
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, 
What have they given your children in return ? 
A heritage of servitude and woes, 
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. 
What ! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn, 
0''er which you stumble in a false ordeal, 
And deem this proof of loyalty the real ; 
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars. 
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars ? 
All that your sires have left you, all that Time 
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime. 
Spring from a different theme ! — Ye see and read. 
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed ! 
Save the few spirits, who, despite of all. 
And worse than all, the sudden crimes engendered 
[ 131 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

By the down-thundering of the prison-wall^ 

And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tenderM, 

Gushing from Ereedom^s fountains — when the crowd, 

MaddenM with centuries of drought, are loud. 

And trample on each other to obtain 

The cup which brings oblivion of a chain 

Heavy and sore, — in which long yoked they ploughed 

The sand, — or if there sprung the yellow grain, 

^T was not for them, their necks were too much bowM, 

And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain : — 

Yes ! the few spirits — who, despite of deeds 

Which they abhor, confound not with the cause 

Those momentary starts from Nature^s laws, 

Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite 

But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth 

With all her seasons to repair the blight 

With a few summers, and again put forth 

Cities and generations — fair, when free — 

Eor, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee ! 

Ill 
Glory and Empire ! once upon these towers 

With Freedom — godlike Triad ! how ye sate ! 
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours 

When Venice was an envy, might abate, 

'But did not quench, her spirit — in her fate 
All were enwrapped : the feasted monarchs knew 

And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate. 
Although they humbled. With the kingly few 
The many felt, for from all days and climes 
[ 132 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

She was the voyager's worship ; — even her crimes 
Were of the softer order — born of Love, 
Slie drank no blood, nor fatten^l on the dead, 
But ghiddenM where her harmless conquests spread ; 
Por these restored the Cross, that from above 
Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant 
riew between earth and the unholy Crescent, 
Which, if it waned and dwindled. Earth may thank 
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank 
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe 
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles ; 
Yet she but shares with them a common woe. 
And caird the " kingdom " of a conquering foe, — 
But knows what all and, most of all, we know — 
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles ! 

IV 

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone 

O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; 
Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own 

A sceptre, and endures the purple robe. 
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone 
His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, 
For tyranny of late is cunning grown. 
And in its own good season tramples down 
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, 
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean 
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion 
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and 
Bequeathed, a heritage of heart and hand, 
[ 133 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And proud distinction from each other land, 

"Whose sons must bow them at a monarches motion, 

As if his senseless sceptre were a wand 

Full of the magic of exploded science, — 

Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, 

Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime. 

Above the far Atlantic ! — She has taught 

Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag. 

The floating fence of Albion^s feebler crag, 

May strike to those whose red right hands have bought 

Eights cheaply earned with blood : — Still, still, for ever 

Better, though each man^s life-blood were a river. 

That it should flow and overflow, than creep 

Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, 

Damn'd like the dull canal with locks and chains. 

And moving, as a sick man in his sleep. 

Three paces and then faltering : — better be 

Where the extinguish^ Spartans still are free. 

In their proud charnel of Thermopylae, 

Than stagnate in our marsh, — or o^er the deep 

Fly, and one current to the ocean add. 

One spirit to the souls our fathers had, 

One freeman more, America, to thee ! 

TO JOHN MUUEAY 

Ravenna, June 29, 1819. 

I have been here (at Eavenna) these four weeks, having 
left Venice a month ago ; — I came to see my Arnica, the 
Countess Guiccioli, who has been, and still continues, very 
[ 134 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

unwell. . . . She is only twenty years old,, but not of 
a strong constitution. . . . She has a perpetual cough 
and an intermittent fever^ but bears up most gallantly in 
every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third 
wife) is the richest noble of Eavenna, and almost of 
Eomagna; he is also not the youngest, being upwards of 
threescore, but in good preservation. All this will appear 
strange to you, who do not understand the Meridian 
morality, nor our way of life in such respects, and I cannot 
at present expound the difference ; — but you would find it 
much the same in these parts. At Faenza there is Lord 
Kinnaird with an opera girl ; and at the inn in the same 
town is a Neapolitan Prince, who serves the wife of the 
Gonfaloniere of that city. I am on duty here — so you 
see " Cosi fan i\)Xti e tut^^.^^ 

I have my horses here — saddle as well as carriage — 
and ride or drive every day in the forest, the Pineta, the 
scene of Boccaccio's novel, and Dryden's fable of Honoria, 
etc., etc., and I see my Dama every day at the proper 
(and improper) hours; but I feel seriously uneasy about 
her health, which seems very precarious. In losing her, I 
should lose a being who has run great risks on my account, 
and whom I have every reason to love — but I must not 
think this possible. I do not know wliat I should do if 
she died, but I ought to blow my brains out — and I hope 
that I should. Her husband is a very polite personage, 
but I wish he would not carry me out in his Coach and 
Six, like Whittington and his Cat. 

You ask me if I mean to continue B. J., etc. How 
sliould I know ? what encouragement do you give me, all 
[ 135 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

of jou, -with your nonsensical prudery ? publish the two 
Cantos, and then you will see. I desired Mr. Kinnaird to 
speak to you on a little matter of business ; either he has 
not spoken, or you have not answered. You are a pretty 
pair, but I will be even with you both. 



TO JOHN MUEEAY 

Bologna, August 12, 1819. 

You are right, Gifford is right, Crabbe is right,^ Hob- 
house is right — you are all right, and I am all wrong ; 
but do, pray, let me have that i)leasure. Cut me up root 
and branch ; quarter me in the (Quarterly ; send round my 
disjecti membra poetcs, like those of the Levite^s Concu- 
bine ; make me, if you will, a spectacle to men and angels ; 
but don't ask me to alter, for I can't : — I am obstinate 
and lazy — and there 's the truth. 

But, nevertheless, I will answer your friend C[ohen], 
who objects to the quick succession of fun and gravity, as 
if in that case the gravity did not (in intention, at least) 
heighten the fun. His metaplior is, that ^'^ we are never 
scorched and drenched at the same time.'' Blessings on 
his experience ! Ask him these questions about " scorch- 
ing and drenching." Did he never play at Cricket, or 
walk a mile in liot weather ? Did he never spill a dish of 
tea over himself in handing the cup to his charmer, to the 
great shame of his nankeen breeches ? Did he never swim 

1 Concerning "Don Juau." 

[ 136 ] 



IRAJAN'S Column in loruni 
of Trajan, Rome. 




" //« was more 
Than a mere Alexander, and, unstaind 
With household blood and ivine, serenely vmre 
His sovereign virtues — still ice Trajan s name adore.' 



j-ii^.i-i^ Wo^.^i.i r'^,^¥r^i\r <!fo 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

in the sea at Noonday with the Sun in his eyes and on his 
head, which all the foam of Ocean could not cool ? Did 
he never draw his foot out of a tub of too hot water, 
damning his eyes and his valet^s ? . . . Was he ever 
in a Turkish bath, that marble paradise of sherbet and 
Sodomy? Was lie ever in a cauldron of boiling oil, 
like St. John ? or in the sulphureous waves of hell ? 
(where he ought to be for his " scorching and drenching 
at the same time '''). Did he never tumble into a river or 
lake, fishing, and sit in his wet cloathes in the boat, or on 
the bank, afterwards " scorched and drenched,''^ like a true 
sportsman ? " Oh, for breath to utter ! " — but make him 
my compliments ; he is a clever fellow for all that — a very 
clever fellow. 

You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny : I have no 
plan — I had no plan; but I had or have materials; though 
if, like Tony Lumpkin,^ I am " to be snubbed so when I 
am in spirits," the poem will be naught, and the poet 
turn serious again. If it don^t take, I will leave it off 
where it is, with all due respect to the Public ; but if con- 
tinued, it must be in my own way. You might as well 
make Hamlet (or Diggory) ^ ^^ act mad " in a strait waist- 
coat as trammel my buffoonery, if I am to be a buffoon : 
their gestures and my thoughts would only be pitiably 
absurd and ludicrously constrained. Why, Man, the Soul 
of such writing is its license ; at least the liberty of that 
license, if one likes — not that one should abuse it : it is 

1 In " She Stoops to Conquer," Act ii. 

^ "Diggory," the stage-struck servant at Strawberry Hall, in Jack- 
man's farce " All the World 's a Stage." 

[ 137 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

like trial by Jury and Peerage and the Habeas Corpus — a 
very fine thing, but chiefly in the reversion ; because no 
one wishes to be tried for the mere pleasure of proving his 
possession of the privilege. 

But a truce with these reflections. You are too earnest 
and eager about a work never intended to be serious. Do 
you suppose that I could have any intention but to giggle 
and make giggle ? — a playful satire, with as little poetry 
as could be helped, was what I meant : and as to the 
indecency, do, pray, read in Boswell what Johnson^ the 
sullen moralist, says of Frior and Paulo Purgante.^ 

Will you get a favour done for me ? You can, by your 
Government friends, Croker, Canning, or my old School- 
fellow Peel, and I can't. Here it is. Will you ask them 
to appoint {without salary or emolument) a noble Italian ^ 
(whom I will name afterwards) Consul or Yice-Consul for 
Eavenna ? He is a man of very large property, — noble, 
too ; but he wishes to have a British protection, in case of 
changes. Eavenna is near the sea. He wants no emolu- 
ment whatever : that his office might be useful, I know ; 
as I lately sent off from Eavenna to Trieste a poor devil of 
an English Sailor, who had remained there sick, sorry, and 
penniless (having been set ashore in 1814), from the want 
of any accredited agent able or willing to help him home- 
wards. Will you get this done ? It will be the greatest 
favour to me. If you do, I will then send his name and 
condition, subject^ of course, to rejection, if not approved 
when known. 

1 See Boswell's "Life of Johnson," ed. Hill, vol. ill., p. 192. 
^ Count Guiccioli, husband of Teresa Guiccioli. 

[ 138 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

I know that in the Levant you make consuls and Vice- 
Consuls, perpetually, of foreigners. Tliis man is a Patri- 
cian, and has twelve thousand a year. His motive is a 
British protection in case of new Invasions. Don't you 
think Croker would do it for us ? To be sure, my i7iterest 
is rare! 1 but, perhaps a brother- wit in the Tory line 
might do a good turn at the request of so harmless and 
long absent a Whig, particularly as there is no salary nor 
hufthen of any sort to be annexed to the office. 

I can assure you, I should look upon it as a great 
obligation ; but, alas ! that very circumstance may, very 
probably, operate to the contrary — indeed, it ought. But 
I have, at least, been an honest and an open enemy. 
Amongst your many splendid Government Connections, 
could not you, think you, get our Bibulus made a Consul ? 
Or make me one, that I may make him my Vice. You 
may be assured that, in case of accidents in Italy, he 
would be no feeble adjunct — as you would think if you 
knew his property. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Venice, October 29, 1819. 

You say nothing of the Vice-Consulate for the Ravenna 
patrician, from which it is to be inferred that the thing 
will not be done. 

I had written about a hundred stanzas of a third Canto 
to Bon Juan, but the reception of the two first is no 
encouragement to you nor me to proceed. 
[ 139 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I had also written about 600 lines of a poem, tlie 
Vision (or Prophecy) of Dante, the subject a view of Italy 
in the ages down to the present — supposing Dante to 
speak in his own person, previous to his death, and em- 
bracing all topics in the way of prophecy, like Lycophron's 
Cassandra} But tliis and the other are both at a stand- 
still for the present. 

I gave Moore, who is gone to Eome, my Life in MS., 
in 78 folio sheets, brought down to 181 6.2 But this I 
put into his hands for his care, as he has some other MSS. 
of mine — a journal kept in 1814, etc. Neither are for 
publication during my life ; but when I am cold you may 
do what you please. In the meantime, if you like to read 
them you may, and show tliem to anybody you like — I 
care not. 

The Life is Memoranday and not Confessions. I have 
left out all my loves (except in a general way), and many 
other of tlie most important things (because I must not 
compromise other people), so that it is like the play of 
"Hamlet^' — "the part of Hamlet omitted by particular 
desire.^^ But you will find many opinions, and some 
fun, with a detailed account of my marriage and its con- 
sequences, as true as a party concerned can make such 
accounts, for I suppose we are all prejudiced. 

1 have never read over this life since it was written, so 

^ The Cassandra of Lycophron, Alexandrian poet and grammarian (circ. 
284 B. c), contains prophecies of events in Greek history. 

2 This formed a portion of the manuscript, which was completed 
December, 1820, and bought by Murray from Moore, November, 1821, for 
2000 guineas. After Byron's death, the whole manuscript was destroyed 
by the advice of Byron's fiiends. 

[ 140 ] 



THE YEARS 1817, 1818, 1819 

that I know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. 
Moore and I passed some merry days together/ but so far 
from "seducing me to England/'' as you suppose, the 
account he gave of me and mine was of anything but a 
nature to make me wish to return : it is not such opinions 
of the public that would weigh with me one way or the 
other ; but I think they should weigh witli others of my 
friends before they ask me to return to a place for which I 
have no great inclination. 

I probably must return for business, or in my way to 
America. Pray, did you get a letter for Hobhouse, who 
will have told you the contents ? I understood that the 
Venezuelan commissioners had orders to treat with emi- 
grants ; now I want to go there. I should not make a bad 
South American planter. 

1 Moore had recently made Byron a visit of four days. 



[ 141 ] 



C it' s 



^ ^ ^ 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

RAVENNA 
INTRODUCTORY 

7'N the last month of the year 1819, after a resi- 
dence of three years in Venice, Byron removed to 
Ravenna. His first visit to that city had been 
made in the preceding spring, on which occasion he 
had written the beautiful " Stanzas to the Po," 
beginning: 

"River, that rollest hy the ancient walls 
Where dwells the lady of my love.'' 

Of this lady. Countess Teresa Guiccioli, and of this 
visit and the distinguished attentions paid to him as 
gv^st by the lady's husband. Count Guiccioli, we have 
heard already through Byron's letter (p. IS^). We 
have had, also, the letter written from Bologna on 
the way home (p. 136), urgently soliciting, as a great 
favor to himself, the good offices of John Murray m 
securing for the Count the position of V ice-Consul at 
Ravenna, 

Letters which are now to follow show, as might be 
expected, that the relations between the two men soon 
become strained, leading speedily to open enmity 
and finally to a separation between the Count and 
Countess Guiccioli. Divorce being impossible in Italy, 
10 [ 145 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

and appeal to the courts out of the question since, so 
Byron writes, " in this country the very courts hold 
such proofs in abhorrence, the Italians being as much 
more delicate in public than the English as they are 
more passionate in private j*^ — the separation was 
effected by an appeal to the Pope. The papal decree 
dictated that the Countess thereafter should live either 
under her father's roof or in a convent. Naturally, 
she chose the former, and in the midsummer of 1820 
Madame Guiccioli left Ravenna, and retired to a villa 
belonging to her father. Count Gamba, about -fifteen 
miles from the city. Byron continued to rent a por- 
tion of the Guiccioli palace in Ravenna from Count 
Guiccioli. Henceforward, for the remainder of 
Byron's life, his plans were shaped largely by the 
movements and fortunes of the Gamba family. They, 
like Byron himself, were ardent revolutionists; when 
this movement failed, and the Gambas — father, son, 
and daughter — were exiled from Romagna, Byron 
also withdrew, and soon all were under the same roof 
at Pisa; when, in turn, a year later, the Gambas were 
banished also from Tuscany as they had been from 
Romagna, Byron followed their fortunes to Liguria. 
Between Byron and Pietro Gamba, the son, a devoted 
friendship existed, terminated only by death; for 
Pietro joined Byron on his expedition to Greece, and 
stood at his bedside during his last moments. 

During these years Italy was in a state of tre- 
mendous political ferment. His letters are full of 
[ li6 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

tales of duelsy riots, imprisonments, murders secret 
and open; and Byron, never deficient in physical 
courage, plainly enjoyed the excitement, and not 
infrequently took a hand himself. 

Moreover, these things seemed to stimulate rather 
than stifle his literary activity, for during these 
two years he wrote the fifth canto of *' Don Juan,''' 
five dramas, — " Marino Faliero,'' *' Sai'danapalus," 
" The Two Foscari,'' " Cain,'' " Heaven and Earth,'' 
— and the satires " Vision of Judgment " and " The 
Blues." In the second year of the Ravenna resi- 
dence, Shelley visited Byron, and reports that he finds 
him ** immersed in politics and literature, greatly 
improved in every respect . . . in genius, in temper, 
in moral views, in health, in happiness," compared 
with the previous visit at Venice three years before. 
** He is quite cured of his gross habits, as far as 
habits; the perverse ideas on which they were formed 
are not yet eradicated." The two men held long 
after-dinner talks, lasting sometimes until morning, 
in which they discussed personal plans, politics, liter- 
ature, and criticised each other's respective works. 
Byron was silent as to " Adonais," loud in praise of 
" Prometheus Unbound," and in censure of *' The 
Cenci "; Shelley, cool towards " Marino Faliero," but 
enthusiastic over " Don Juan." Even Byron himself 
must have been satisfied zmth Shelley's praise of the 
new Canto V, of xchich he says *' every word has the 
stamp of immortality." 

[ 147 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

^At Shelley's urgency, Byron agreed to give up his 
plan of joining the Gambas in Switzerland, and to 
remain in Italy if they too would consent. By 
Shelley^s mediation this consent was gained, Shelley 
undertaking to find a house for them at Pisa, where 
he was himself living. Another result of the visit 
was the invitation to Leigh Hunt, conveyed in a letter 
from Shelley, to come to Pisa and " go shares " with 
Byron and himself in a periodical to be published 
there, in which each of the contracting parties should 
publish all his original compositions and share the 
profits. This is the first definite step towards the 
actual embodiment of Byron^s long-cherished idea of 
a review of his own for the publication of his own 
zeorks, rvhich later took shape in the ill-starred 
''Liberal 

The incidents of the Ravenna life are exhibited 
very fully by Byron himself in a *' Diary " and a 
book of " Detached Thoughts.'' In these comes the 
announcement (February ^J^, 1821 ) of the failure of 
the revolutionary movement, and " thus the Italians 
are always lost for lack of union among themselves.'' 
And again (May 1, 1821), " Some day or other, if 
dust holds together, I have been enough in the secret 
(at least in this part of the country) to cast perhaps 
some little light upon the atrocious treachery which 
has replunged Italy into barbarism. . . . Come what 
may, the cause was a glorious one, though it reads at 
present as if the Greeks had run away from Xerxes." 
[ 118 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



STANZAS TO THE PO 

EiVER, that rollest by the ancient walls. 

Where dwells the lady of my love, when she 

Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls 
A faint and fleeting memory of me ; 

What if thy deep and ample stream should be 
A mirror of my heart, where she may read 

The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee. 
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed ! 

What do I say — a mirror of my heart ? 

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong ? 
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art ; 

And such as thou art were my passions long. 

Time may have somewhat tamed them, — not for ever ; 

Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye 
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river ! 

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away — 

But left long wrecks behind : and now again. 
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move ; 

Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main. 
And I — to loving one I should not love. 

The current I behold will sweep beneath 
Her native walls and murmur at her feet; 

Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe 
The twilight air, unharmM by summer's heat. 
[ 119 ] 



WITH BYRON IxN ITALY 

She will look on thee, — I have looked on thee, 

Eull of that thought ; and, from that moment, ne'er 

Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see. 
Without the inseparable sigh for her ! 

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, — 
Yes ! they will meet the wave I gaze on now ; 

Mine cannot witness, even in a dream. 
That happy wave repass me in its flow ! 

The wave that bears my tears returns no more : 

Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? — 

Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore, 
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep. 

But that which keepeth us apart is not 

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth. 

But the distraction of a various lot. 

As various as the climates of our birth. 

A stranger loves the lady of the land. 

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood 

Is all meridian, as if never fann'd 

By the black wind that chills the polar flood. 

My blood is all meridian ; were it not, 
I had not left my clime, nor should I be. 

In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, 
A slave again of love, — at least of thee. 
[ 150 ] 



►ALAZZO Guiccioli at Ravenna. 







JJ:fl 3' a i 



..Jv ' ' 



-i •" i 



Jl^>\ 



Bi/ron's residence in 18 W and 1821 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

'T is vain to struggle — let me perisli young — 
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved ; 

To dust if I return, from dust I sprung. 

And then, at least, my heart can ne^er be moved. 

Ju7ie 1819. [First published, 1824.] 



TO THOMAS MOOEE 

January 2, 1820. 

Eor my own part, I had a sad scene since you went. 
Count Gu. came for his wife, and none of those conse- 
quences which Scott prophesied ensued. There was no 
damages, as in England, and so Scott lost his wager. But 
there was a great scene, for she would not, at first, go back 
with him — at last, she did go back with him ; but he in- 
sisted, reasonably enough, that all communication should 
be broken off between her and me. So, finding Italy very 
dull, and having a fever tertian, I packed up my valise, 
and prepared to cross the Alps ; but my daughter fell ill, 
and detained me. 

After her arrival at Ravenna, the Guiccioli fell ill again 
too ; and at last, her father (who had, all along, opposed 
the liaison most violently till now) wrote to me to say that 
she was in such a state that he begged me to come and see 
her, — and that her liusband had acquiesced, m consequence 
of her relapse, and that he (her father) would guarantee all 
this, and that there would be no further scenes in conse- 
quence between them, and that I should not be compro- 
mised in any way. I set out soon after, and have been 
[ 151 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

here ever since. I found her a good deal altered, but 
getting better : all this comes of reading Corinna} 

The Carnival is about to begin, and I saw about two or 
three hundred people at the Marquis Cavalli's tlie other 
evening, with as much youth, beauty, and diamonds among 
the women, as ever averaged in the like number. My 
appearance in waiting on the Guiccioli was considered as a 
thing of course. The Marquis is her uncle, and naturally 
considered me as her relation. 

The paper is out, and so is the letter. Pray write. 
Address to Yenice_, whence the letters will be forwarded. 

Yours, etc., 

B. 

TO EICHARD BELGEAYE HOPPNEU 

Ravenna, January 20, 1820. 

I have not decided anything about remaining at Eavenna. 
I may stay a day, a week, a year, all my life ; but all this 
depends upon what I can neither see nor foresee. I came 
because I was called, and will go the moment that I per- 
ceive what may render my departure proper. My attach- 
ment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the 
microscopic accuracy of the close to such liaisons; but 
"time and the hour^^ must decide upon what I do. I 
can as yet say nothing, because I hardly know anything 
beyond what I have told you. 

I wrote to you last post for my moveables, as there is 

1 Byron and Teresa had read " Corinne " together on the occasion of his 
visit the preceding summei; 

[ 152 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

no getting a lodging with a chair or table here ready ; and 
as I have already some things of the sort at Bologna, I 
have directed them to be moved ; and wish the like to be 
done with those of Yenice, that I may at least get out of 
the Alhergo Imperiale, which is imperial in all true sense 
of the epithet. . . . 

The snow is a foot deep here. There is a theatre, and 
opera, — the Barber of Seville. Balls begin on Monday 
next. Pay the porter for never looking after the gate, and 
ship my chattels, and let me know, or let Castelli let me 
know, how my lawsuits go on — but fee him only in pro- 
portion to his success. Perhaps we may meet in the spring 
yet, if you are for England. I see Hobhouse has got into 
a scrape, which does not please me ; he should not have 
gone so deep among those men without calculating the 
consequences. I used to think myself the most imprudent 
of all among my friends and acquaintances, but almost 
begin to doubt it. 

Yours, etc. 



TO JOHN MUEPtAY 

Ravenna, February 21, 1820. 

I have finished my translation of the first Canto of the 
*' Morgante Maggiore '' of Pulci, which I will transcribe 
and send : it is the parent, not only of Whistlecraft, but 
of all jocose Italian poetry.^ You must print it side by 
side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to 

1 Compare "Don Juan," Canto IV, stanza vi., p. 2J2. 

[ 153 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

judge of the fidelity : it is stanza for stanza, and often line 
for line, if not word for word. 

You ask me for a volume of manners, etc., on Ital}^ : 
perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most 
Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and 
in parts of the country w^here Englishmen never resided 
before (I speak of Eomagna and this place particularly) ; 
but there are many reasons why I do not choose to touch 
in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses 
and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 
" amico di casa" and sometimes as " amico di cuore^' of 
the Dama, and in neither case do I feel myself authorized 
in making a book of them. Their moral is not your 
moral; their life is not your life ; you would not understand 
it : it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you 
would all understand. The Conventual education, the 
Cavalier Servitude, the habits of thought and living are so 
entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more 
striking the more you live intimately with them, that I 
know not how to make you comprehend a people, who are 
at once temperate and profligate, serious in their character 
and buffoons in their amusements, capable of impressions 
and passions, which are at once sudden and durable (what 
you find in no other nation), and who actually have no 
society (what we would call so), as you may see by their 
Comedies : they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni ; 
and that is because they have no Society to draw it from. 

Their Conversazioni are not Society at all. They go to 
the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. 
The women sit in a circle, and the men gather into 
[ 154 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

groups, or they play at dreary Faro or ''Lotto reale" 
for small sums. Their Academic are Concerts like our 
own, with better music and more form. Their best tilings 
are the Carnival balls and masquerades, when everybody 
runs mad for six weeks. After tlieir dinners and suppers, 
they make extempore verses and buffoon one another ; but 
it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of 
the North. 

In their houses it is better. I should know something 
of the matter, having had a pretty general experience 
among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the 
NohiV Bonnay whom I serve. Their system has its rules, 
and its fitnesses, and decorums, so as to be reduced to a 
kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few 
deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely 
tenacious, and jealous as furies; not permitting their lovers 
even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always 
close to them in public as in private whenever they can. 
In short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the 
not out of that commandment. The reason is, that they 
marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact 
fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the 
husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a per- 
son's character, male or female, canvassed, not as depending 
on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their 
mistress or lover. And — and — that 's all. If I wrote a 
quarto, I don't know that I could do more than amplify 
what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while 
they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid 
to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their 

[ 155 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Serventi — particularly if the Iiusbaiid serves no one him- 
self (which is not often the case, however) : so that you 
would often suppose them relations — the Servente making 
the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the 
ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a 
scene; but this is at starting, generally, w^hen they know 
no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or 
some such anomaly, — and is always reckoned unnecessary 
and extravagant. 

You enquire after " Dante's Prophecy " : I have not 
done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at 
leisure. 

THE PKOPHECY OP DANTE 

'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast tlieir shadows before. 

Campbell. 

DEDICATION 

Lady ! ^ if for the cold and cloudy clime 

Where I was born, but wdiere I would not die. 

Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy 
I dare to build the imitative rhyme, 
Harsh Eunic copy of the South^sj sublime. 

Thou art the cause ; and howsoever I 

Pall short of his immortal harmony, 
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. 
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, 

Spakest ; and for thee to speak and be obeyM 

^ Teresa Guiccioli. 

[ 156 ] 



T 



0MB of Dante at Ravenna. 




Happier Ravenna '. on thy hoary shore. 
Fortress of falllny empire^ honour d sleeps 
The immortal exile. " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza lix, p. 73. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Are one ; but only in the sunny South 

Such sounds are uttcrM, and such charms display^. 
So sweet a hinguage from so fair a mouth — 

Ah ! to what effort would it not persuade? 
Ravenna, Juue 21, ISl'J. 

PREFACE 

In the course of a visit to the city of Eavenna in the 
summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that hav- 
ing composed something on the subject of Tasso's confine- 
ment, he should do the same on Dante^s exile, — the tomb 
of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest 
in that city, both to the native and to the stranger. 

"On this hint I spake/' and the result has been the 
following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the 
reader. If ^they are understood and approved, it is my 
purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to 
its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is 
requested to suppose tliat Dante addresses him in the 
interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia 
and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretell- 
ing the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. 
In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra 
of Lycophron, and the Pro2)hecy of Nereus by Horace, as 
well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure 
adopted is the terza rima of Dante, wliich I am not aware 
to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it .may 
be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but 
one extract, quoted in tlie notes to Caliph Vatlieh ; so that 
— if I do not err — this poem may be considered as a 

[ IST ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the 
same length of those of the poet whose name I have bor- 
rowed, and most probably taken m vain. 

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present 
day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, 
to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the 
fourth canto of GJiilde Harold translated into Italian versi 
sciolti, — that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza 
into hlanh verse, without regard to the natural divisions of 
the stanza or of the sense. If the present poem, being on 
a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I 
would request the Italian reader to remember that when 
I have failed in the imitation of his great ^' Padre Alighier,^^ 
I have failed in imitating that which all study and few 
understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what 
was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the 
Inferno, unless Count Marchetti^s ingenious and proba- 
ble conjecture may be considered as having decided the 
question. 

He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not 
quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since 
the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly 
jealous of all that is left them as a nation — their litera- 
ture; and in the present bitterness of the classic and 
romantic war, are but ill-disposed to permit a foreigner 
even to approve or imitate them, without finding some 
fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily 
enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in 
England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a transla- 
tion of Monti, or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up 
[ 158 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical 
essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address 
to the Italian reader, when my business is with the English 
one ; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of 
both. 

CANTO THE FIRST 

Once more in man's frail world ! which I had left 
So long that ^t was forgotten ; and I feel 
The weight of clay again, — too soon bereft 

Of the immortal vision which could heal 
My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies 
Lift me from that deep gulf without repeal. 

Where late my ears rung with the damned cries 
Of souls in hopeless bale ; and from that place 
Of lesser torment, whence men may arise 

Pure from the fire to join the angelic race ; 
Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd 
My spirit with her light ; and to the base 

Of the eternal Triad, — first, last, best. 
Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God ! 
Soul universal ! — led the mortal guest 

Unblasted by the glory, though he trod 

From star to star to reach the almighty throne. 
O Beatrice ! whose sweet limbs the sod 

So long hath pressed and the cold marble stone. 
Thou sole pure seraph of my earliest love. 
Love so inefi*able and so alone, 

Tliat nought on earth could more my bosom move, 
And meeting thee in heaven was but to meet 
[ 159 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

That without which my soul, like the arkless dove, 

Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet 
Eelieved her wing till found, — without thy light 
My paradise had still been incomplete. 

Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight 
Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought, 
Loved ere I knew the name of love, and bright 

Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought 
With the world^s war and years and banishment 
And tears for thee, by other woes untaught ; 

For mine is not a nature to be bent 

By tyrannous faction and the brawling crowd, 
And thougli the long, long conflict hath been spent 

In vain, and never more (save when the cloud 
Which overhangs the Apennine, my mind's eye 
Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud 

Of me) can I return, though but to die. 
Unto my native soil, — they have not yet 
Quench''d the old exile's spirit, stern and high. 

But the sun, though not overcast, must set. 
And the night cometh ; I am old in days, 
And deeds, and contemplation, and have met 

Destruction face to face in all his ways. . 

The world hath left me, what it found me, pure, 
And if I have not gathered yet its praise, 

I sought it not by any baser lure. 

Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 
May form a monument not all obscure 

(Though such was not my ambition's end or aim), 
To add to the vain-glorious list of those 
[ 160 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Who dabble in the pettiness of fame. 

And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows 
Their sail, and deem it glorj to be classed 
With conquerors and virtue's other foes 

In bloody chronicles of ages past. 

I would have had my Florence great and free : 
O Florence ! Florence ! unto me thou wast 

Like that Jerusalem which the almighty He 

Wept over, ' but thou wouldst not ! ' As the bird 
Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee 

Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard 
My voice ; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, 
Against the breast that cherished thee was stirr'd 

Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce. 
And doom this body forfeit to the fire.^ 
Alas ! how bitter is his country's curse 

To him who /or that country would expire, 
But did not merit to expire d^ her. 
And loves her, loves her even in her ire. 

The day may come when she will cease to err. 
The day may come she would be proud to have 
The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer 

Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. 
But this shall not be granted ; let my dust 
Lie where it falls ; nor shall the soil which gave 

Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust 
Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 
My indignant bones, because her angry gust 

1 In 1302, a decree was issued that Dante and his associates in exile 
should be burned if they fell into the hands of their enemies. 

11 [ 161 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Forsooth is over and repeaPd her doom : 

No, she denied me what was mine — my roof, 
And shall not have what is not hers — my tomb. 

Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof 

The breast w^iich would have bled for her, the heart 
That beat, the mind that was temptation proof. 

The man who fought, toiFd, traveled, and eacli part 
Of a true citizen fulfilFd, and saw 
For his reward the Guelf s ascendant art 

Pass his destruction even into a law. 

These things are not made for forgetfulness, 
Florence shall be forgotten first ; too raw 

The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress 
Of such endurance too prolong\l to make 
My pardon greater, her injustice less. 

Though late repented. Yet — yet for her sake 
I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine. 
My own Beatrice, I would hardly take 

Vengeance upon the land which once was mine. 
And still is hallowM by thy dust's return. 
Which would protect the murderess like a shrine 

And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. 

Though, like old Marius ^ from Minturnse's marsh 
And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn 

At times with evil feelings hot and harsh. 
And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe 
Writhe in a dream before me and o'er-arch 

My brow w^ith hopes of triumph, — let them go ! 

1 Marius, proconsul of Africa, prosecuted, fined, and banished by bis 
province. 

[ 162 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Such are the last infirmities of those 

Who long have sufFerM more than mortal woe, 

And yet, being mortal still, have no repose 
But on the pillow of Eevenge — Revenge, 
Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows 

With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change. 
When we shall mount again, and they that trod 
Be trampled on, while Death and Ate range 

O'er humbled heads and severed necks. — Great God ! 
Take these thoughts from me ; to thy hands I yield 
My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod 

Will fall on those who smote me, — be my shield ! 
As thou hast been in peril, and in pain. 
In turbulent cities, and the tented field. 

In toil, and many troubles borne in vain 
For Florence. I appeal from her to Thee ! 
Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign. 

Even in that glorious vision, which to see 
And live was never granted until now. 
And yet thou hast permitted this to me. 

Alas ! with what a weight upon my brow 

The sense of earth and earthly things come back, 
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low. 

The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack. 
Long day, and dreary night ; the retrospect 
Of half a century bloody and black. 

And the frail few years I may yet expect 
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear. 
For I have been too loug and deeply wrecked 

On the lone rock of desolate Despair 

[ 163 ] 



WITH ^YRON IN ITALY 

To lift my eyes more to the passing sail 

Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare ; 
Nor raise my voice — for who would heed my wail ? 

I am not of this people nor this age, 

And yet my harpings will unfold a tale 
Which shall preserve these times when not a page 

Of their perturbed annals could attract 

An eye to gaze upon their civil rage. 
Did not my verse embalm full many an act 

Worthless as they who wrought it. ''T is the doom 

Of spirits of my order to be racFd 
In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume 

Their days in endless strife, and die alone ; 

Then future thousands crowd around their tomb, 
And pilgrims come from climes where they have known 

The name of him, who now is but a name. 

And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone. 
Spread his — by him unheard, unheeded — fame. 

And mine at least hath cost me dear : to die 

Is nothing ; but to wither thus, to tame 
My mind down from its own infinity. 

To live in narrow ways with little men, 

A common sight to every common eye, 
A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, 

Eipp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things 

That make communion sweet, and soften pain — 
To feel me in the solitude of kings 

Without the power that makes them bear a crown. 

To envy every dove his nest and wings 
Which waft him Avhere the Apennine looks down 
[ 164 ] 






- d 



< ^ 




Q 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Oil Arno, till he perches, it may be. 

Within my all inexorable town, 
Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,^ 

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought 

Destruction for a dowry, — this to see 
And feel, and know without repair, hath taught 

A bitter lesson ; but it leaves me free : 

I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, 
They made an Exile — not a slave of me. 

CANTO THE SECOND 

The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, 

When words were things that came to pass, and 
thought 

FlashM o^er the future, bidding men behold 
Their children's children's doom already brought 

Forth from the abyss of time which is to be. 

The chaos of events, where lie half-wrought 
Shapes that must undergo mortality, — 

What the great Seers of Israel wore wdthin, 

That spirit was on them, and is on me. 
And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din 

Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed 

This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin 
Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed. 

The only guerdon I have ever known. 

Hast thou not bled ? and hast thou still to bleed, 

1 Gemma, Dante's wife and the mother of his seven children, did not 
share his exile. There is a tradition, but no proof, that she had a violent 
temper. 

[ 165 ] 



WITPI BYRON IN ITALY 

Italia ? Ah ! to me such things, foreshown 

With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget 

In thine irreparable wrongs mj own. 
We can have but one country, and even yet 

Thou ^rt mine — my bones shall be within thy breast. 

My soul within thy language, which once set 
With our old Eoman sway in the wide West ; 

But I will make another tongue arise 

As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed 
The heroes ardour, or the lover^s sighs. 

Shall find alike such sounds for every theme 

That every v/ord, as brilliant as thy skies, 
Shall realise a poet^s proudest dream, 

And make thee Europe^s nightingale of song; 

So that all present speech to thine shall seem 
The note of meaner birds, and every tongue 

Confess its barbarism wlien compared with thine. 

This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wTong, 
Thy Tuscan Bard, the banisliM Ghibelline. 

Woe ! woe ! the veil of coming centuries 

Is rent, — a thousand years which yet supine 
Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise. 

Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, 

Float from eternity into these eyes ; 
The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, 

The unborn earthquake yet is in the womb, 

The bloody chaos yet expects creation, 
But all things are disposing for thy doom ; 

The elements await but for the word, 

^ Let there be darkness ! ' and thou grow^st a tomb ! 
[ 166 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Yes ! thou, so beautiful, slialt feel the sword ; 
Thou, Italy ! so fair that Paradise, 
Eevived in thee, blooms forth to man restored : 

Ah ! must the sons of Adam lose it twice ? 
Thou, Italy ! whose ever golden fields, 
Plough-'d by the sunbeams solely, would suffice 

For the world's granary ; thou, whose sky heaven gilds 
With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue ; 
Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds 

Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew. 
And formal the Eternal City's ornaments 
From spoils of kings wdiom freemen overthrew ; 

Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of saints. 

Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made 
Her home ; thou, all which fondest fancy paints. 

And finds her prior vision but portrayed 

In feeble colours, wdien the eye — from the Alp 
Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade 

Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp 

Nods to the storm — dilates and dotes o'er thee, 
And wistfully implores, as 't were, for help 

To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, 

Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still 

The more approach'd, and dearest were they free ; 

Thou — thou must wdther to each tyrant's will. 
The Goth hath been, the German, Frank, and Hun 
Are yet to come ; and on the imperial hill 

Euin, already proud of the deeds done 

By the old barbarians, there awaits the new. 
Throned on the Pain tine, while lost and won 

[ 16T ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Eome at her feet lies bleeding ; and the hue 
Of human sacrifice and Eoinan slaughter 
Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue. 

And deepens into red the saffron water 

Of Tiber, thick with dead. The helpless priest. 
And still more helpless nor less holy daughter, 

Vow^d to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased 
Their ministry. The nations take their prey, 
Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast 

And bird, wolf, vtdture, more humane than they 
Are ; these but gorge the flesh and lap the gore 
Of the departed, and then go their way ; 

But those, the human savages, explore 
All paths of torture, and insatiate yet. 
With Ugolino-hungcr prowl for more. 

Nine moons shall rise o^er scenes like this and set ; ^ 
The chiefless army of the dead, which late 
Beneath the traitor Princess banner met, 

Ilath left its leader''s ashes at the gate ; 
Had but the royal llebel lived, perchance 
Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate. 

Oh ! Eome, the spoiler or the spoil of Prance, 
Prom Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never 
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance 

But Tiber shall become a mournful river. 

Oil ! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, 
Crush them, ye rocks ! floods whelm them, and for 
ever ! 

1 Refen-iiig to the siege and capture of Rome by the Constable of 
Bourbon, who himself perished in the assault. 

[ 168 ] 



THE YEARS 18^0 AND 1821 

Why sleep the idle avalanches so. 

To topple on the lonely pilgrim^s head ? 
Why doth Eridanus bat overflow 

The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed ? 

Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey ? 
Over Cambyses' host the desert spread 

Her sandy ocean, and the sea waves' sway 

EolFd over Pharaoh and his thousands, — why, 
Mountains and waters, do ye not as they ? 

And you, ye men ! Eomans, who dare not die. 
Sons of the conquerors who overthrew 
Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie 

The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew. 
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylae ? 
Their passes more alluring to the view 

Of an invader ? is it they, or ye, 

That to eacli host the mountain-gate unbar. 
And leave the march in peace, the passage free ? 

Why, Nature's self detains the victor's car. 
And makes your land impregnable, if earth 
Could be so ; but alone she Avill not war. 

Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth 

In a soil where the mothers bring forth men : 
Not so with those whose souls are little worth ; 

Eor them no fortress can avail, — the den 
Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting 
Is more secure than walls of adamant, when 

The hearts of those within are quivering. 

Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil 
Ilath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring 
[ 169 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Against Oppression ; but how vain the toil, 
While still Division sows the seeds of woe 
And weakness, till the stranger reaps the spoil. 

Oh ! my own beauteous land ! so long laid low, 
So long the grave of thy own children's hopes, 
When there is but required a single blow 

To break the chain, yet — yet the Avenger stops, 
And Doubt and Discord step ^twixt thine and thee. 
And join their strength to that which with thee copes ; 

What is there wanting then to set thee free. 
And show thy beauty in its fullest light ? 
To make the Al])s impassable ; and we. 

Her sons, may do this with 07ie deed — Unite. 



CANTO THE FOURTH 

Many are poets w4io have never penned 
Their inspiration, and perchance the best : 
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend 

Their thoughts to meaner beings ; they compressed 
The god within them, and rejoin^ the stars 
Unlaureird upon eartli, but far more blessM 

Than those who are degraded by the jars 

Of passion, and their frailties linkM to fame. 
Conquerors of high renown but full of scars. 

Many are poets but without the name. 
For what is poesy but to create 
Prom overfeeling good or ill ; and aim 

At an external life beyond our fate. 

And be the new Prometheus of nev/ men, 
[ ITO ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late, 
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain 

And vultures to the heart of the bestower, 

Who, having lavish''d his high gift in vain, 
Lies chainM to his lone rock by the seashore ? 

So be it : we can bear. — But thus all they 

Whose intellect is an o'erinastering power 
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay 

Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoever 

The form which their creations may essay, 
Are bards ; the kindled marble^s bust may wear 

More poesy upon its speaking brow 

Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear. 
One noble stroke with a whole life may glow, 

Or deify the canvas till it shine 

With beauty so surpassing all below. 
That they who kneel to idols so divine 

Break no commandment, for high heaven is there 

Transfused, transfiguratcd ; and the line 
Of poesy, wliich peoples but the air 

With thought and beings of our thought reflected. 

Can do no more. Then let the artist share 
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected 

Eaints o'er the labour unapproved — Alas ! 

Despair and Genius are too oft connected. 
Within the ages which before me pass 

Art shall resume and equal even the sway 

Which with Apelles and old Phidias 
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day. 

Ye shall be taught by Euin to revive 

[ ni ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

The Grecian forms at least from their decay ; 
And Eoman souls at last again shall hve 

In Roman works wrought by Italian hands ; 

And temples, loftier than the old temples, give 
New wonders to the world ; and while still stands 

The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 

A dome, its image, vhile the base expands 
Into a fane surpassing all before. 

Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in : ne^er 

Such sight hath been unfolded by a door 
As this, to which all nations shall repair, 

And lay their sins at this huge gate of heaven. 

And the bold Architect unto whose care 
The daring charge to raise it shall be given. 

Whom all arts shall acknowledge as their lord, 

"Whether into the marble chaos driven 
His chisel bid the Hebrew, at whose word 

Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone. 

Or hues of Hell be by his pencil pour\l 
Over the damnM before the Judgment-throne, 

Such as I saw tliem, such as all shall see. 

Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown, — 
The stream of his great thoughts shall spring from 
me, ^ 

The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms 

Which form tlie empire of eternity. 
Amidst the clash of swords and clang of helms, 

^ The inspiration received from Dante by Michel Angelo is to be seen 
plainly iu his treatment of the Last Judgment and of the Brazen Serpent iu 
the Sistiue Chapel, Rome. 

[ 172 ] 



rpHE Last Judgment," in Sistine Chapel, 
Rome, by Michel Aiigelo. 




" Hues of Hell he hy his pencil pour''d 
Over the dtumid before the huh/tnent-throne/' 

~ The Pr. aecy of Dante, Canto IV, p. 172. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The age which I anticipate, no less 

Shall be the Age of Beauty ; and while whelms 

Calamity the nations with distress. 
The genius of my country shall arise, 
A cedar towering o'er the Wilderness, 

Lovely in all its branches to all eyes, 
Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar. 
Wafting its native incense through the skies. 

Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war. 
Weaned for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze 
On canvas or on stone ; and they who mar 

All beauty upon earth, compelFd to praise. 

Shall feel the power of that which they destroy ; 
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise 

To tyrants who but take her for a toy 
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute 
Her charms to pontiffs proud, who but employ 

The man of genius as the meanest brute ^ 
To bear a burthen and to serve a need, 
To sell his labours and his soul to boot. 

Who toils for nations may be poor indeed. 
But free ; who sweats for monarchs is no more 
Than the gilt chamberlain, who, clothed and fee'd, 

Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door. 
Oh, Power that rulest and iiispirest ! how 
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power 

Is likest thine in heaven in outward show. 
Least like to thee in attributes divine. 
Tread on the universal necks that bow, 

1 Alluding to Julius II and Leo X and their treatment of Michel Angelo. 

[ 173 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And then assure us that their rights are thine ? 
And how is it that thej, the sons of fame, 
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine 

From high, they whom the nations oftest name, 
Must pass their days in penury or pain, 
Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame, 

And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain ? 
Or if their destiny be born aloof 
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain, 

In their own souls sustain a harder proof, 
Tiie inner war of passions deep and fierce ? 
Florence ! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof, 

I loved thee ; but the vengeance of my verse. 
The hate of injuries which every year 
Makes greater, and accumulates my curse, 

Shall live, outliving all thou boldest dear — 

Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even iliatj 
The most infernal of all evils here, 

The sway of petty tyrants in a state ; 
For such sway is not limited to kings. 
And demagogues yield to them but in date. 

As swept off sooner ; in all deadly things 

Which make men hate themselves and one another. 
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs 

From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother, 
In rank oppression in its rudest shape, 
Tlie faction Chief is but tlie Sultan's brother. 

And the worst despot 's far less human ape : — 
Florence ! when this lone spirit, which so long 
Yearn'd, as the captive toiling at escape, 
[ 174 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 
An exile, saddest of all ])risoners, 
Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong. 
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's verge for bars, 
Winch shut him from the sole small spot of earth 
Where — whatsoe'er his fate — he still were hers. 
His country's, and might die where he had birth — 
Florence ! when this lone spirit shall return 
To kindred spirits, thou wdlt feel my worth. 
And seek to honour with an empty urn 
The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain — Alas ! 
" What have I done to thee, my people ? " i Stem 
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass 
The limits of man's common malice, for 
All that a citizen could be I was ; 
Eaised by thy will, all thine in peace or war. 

And for this thou hast warr'd with me. — 'T is done : 
I may not overleap the eternal bar 
Built up between us, and will die alone. 
Beholding with the dark eye of a seer 
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown. 
Foretelling them to those who will not hear. 
As in the old time, till the hour be come 
When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear. 
And make them own the Propliet in his tomb.^ 

1 The begiuTiing of one of Dante's letters to the people of Florence. 

2 This hour came very soon after Dante's death, when the city of 
Florence begged for Dante's remains to be buried there. But RavcDna 
refused, and Dante's tomb is one of Ravenna's chief prides. 

[ ns ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Ravenna, March 20, 1820. 
W Murray, — Last post I sent you TAe Vision of 
Dante, — four first cantos. Enclosed you will find, line 
for li7ie, in tkird rhyme {terza rima), of which your 
British Blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, 
Fanny of Rimini, You know that she was' born here, 
and married, and slain, from Gary, Boyd, and such people 
already. I have done it into cramp English, line for line, 
and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. You had 
best append it to the poems already sent by last three 
posts. I shall not allow you to play the tricks you did 
last year, with the prose you joo^^f-scribed to Mazeppa, 
which I sent to you not to be published, if not in a 
periodical paper, — and there you tacked it, without a 
word of explanation and be damned to you. If this is 
published, publish it with the original, and together with 
the Fulci translation, or the Dante Imitation. I suppose 
you have both by now, and the Juan long before. 

Yours, 



B. 



'^FRANCESCA OF RIMINI 

** Translation froni the Inferno of Dante, Canto 5tA 

^ The Land where I was born sits by the Seas, 
Upon that shore to which the Po descends, 
With all his followers, in search of peace. 

Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends. 
Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en 
From me, and me even yet the mode offends. 
[ 176 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Love, who to none beloved to love again 

Hcraits, seized me with wish to please, so strong. 
That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth remain. 

Love to one death conducted us along, 

But Caina waits for him our life who ended' : 
These were the accents uttered by her tongue. — 

Since I first listened to these Souls offended, 
I bowM my visage and so kept it till — 

when ) 
bended. 

And recommenced : ' Alas ! unto such ill 

How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstasies 
Led these their evil fortune to fulfill ! ' 

And then I turned unto their side my eyes. 
And said, ^ Francesca, thy sad destinies 
Have made me sorrow till the tears arise. 

But tell me, in the Season of sweet sighs. 
By what and how thy Love to Passion rose. 
So as his dim desires to recognise ? ^ 

Then she to me : ^ The greatest of all woes 

( recall to mind ) 
Is to < . , „ > our happy days 

( remnid us oi ) ^^"^ *' 

-, ( ^^^«* 1 , . . 

In misery, and j , i , j thy teacher knows. 

But if to learn our passion's first root preys 
Upon thy spirit with such Sympatliy, 

I will < T , } as he who weeps and says. — 

( do ^ even ) ^ ^ 

1 "In some of the editions it is 'diro,' in others 'faro'; — an essen- 
tial difference between * saying ' and * doing,' which J know not how to 

12 [ 177 ^ 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

We read one day for pastime, seated nigh. 
Of Lancilot, how love enchained him too. 
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously, 

But oft our eyes met, and our Cheeks in hue 

All o^er discoloured by that reading were ; 

-n , • , 1 1 71 ( overthrew 

But one ponit only wholly ] 

( us overthrew ; 

When we read the 5 -it. \ smile of her, 

( long-sighed-ior ) 

To be thus kist by such \ ': ' \ lover, 

( devoted ) 

He, who from me can be divided ne^er. 
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over. 

Accursed was the book and he who wrote ! 

That day no further leaf we did uncover.' — 
While thus one Spirit told us of their lot. 

The other wept, so that with pity's thralls 

I swoon'd as if by death I had been smote. 
And fell down even as a dead body falls.'' 



TO JOHN MUREAY 

Eavenna, April 9, 1820. 

I^^ S^^ — Ii"i the name of all the devils in — the printing 
office, why don't you write to acknowledge the receipt of 
the second, third, and fourth packets, viz., the Pulci — 
translation and original, the Bayiticles, the Observations on, 
etc.? You forget that you keep me in hot water till I 

decide. Ask Foscolo. The d d editions drive me mad." (Byron's 

Note. ) 

[ I'^s ] 



THE YEAKS 1820 AND 1821 

know whether they are arrived, or if I must have the bore 
of recopyiiig. 

I send you " A Song of Triumph '' by W. Botherby, 
Escf.^ price sixpence, on the Election of J. C. H.,Esq?, 
for Westminster Qnot for publication) ; 

Would you go to the House by the true gate, 
Much faster than ever Whig Charley went ; 

Let Parliament send you to Newgate, 

And Newgate will send you to Parliament. 

Have you gotten the cream of translations, Francesca 
of Rimini, from i\\Q Inferno ^^ Why, I have sent you a 
warehouse of trash witliin the last month, and you have 
no sort of feeling about you : a pastry-cook would have 
had twice the gratitude, and thanked me at least for the 
quantity. 

P. S. — I have begun a tragedy on the subject of Marino 
Faliero, the Doge of Venice ; but you shaii't see it these 
six years, if you don't acknowledge my packets with more 
quickness and precision. Alioays write, if but a line, by 
return of post, when anything arrives, which is not a mere 
letter. 



TO JOHN MURRAY 

Ravenna, April 23, 1820. 
Dear Murray, — The proofs don't contain the last 
stanzas of Canto second, but end abruptly with the 105th 
Stanza. 

[ 179 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

I told you long ago that the new Cantos ^ were not 
good, and I also told you a reason : recollect, I do not 
oblige you to publish them ; you may suppress them, if 
you like, but I can alter nothing. I have erased the six 
stanzas about those two impostors, Southey and Words- 
worth (which I suppose will give you great pleasure), but 
I can do no more. I can neither recast, nor replace ; but 
I give you leave to put it all into the fire, if you like, or 
not to publish, and I think that 's sufficient. 

I told you that I wrote on with no good will — that I had 
been, not frightened, but liiirt, by the outcry, and, besides 
that, when I wrote last November, I was ill in body, and 
in very great distress of mind about some private things 
of my own ; but you would have it : so I sent it to you, 
and to make it lighter, cut it in tw^o — but I can't piece it 
together again. I can^t cobble : I must " either make a 
spoon or spoil a horn,''^ — and there ''s an end ; for there 's 
no remeid : but I leave you free will to suppress the whole, 
if you like it. 

About the Morgante Mag g lore, I won't have a line 
07nitted : it may circulate, or it may not; but all the 
Criticism on earth shan't touch a line, unless it be because 
it is badly translated. Now you say, and I say, and 
others say, that the translation is a good one ; and so it 
shall go to press as it is. Pulci must answer for his own 
irreligion : I answer for the translation only. . . . 

My love to Scott. I shall think higher of knighthood 
ever after for his being dubbed. By the way, he is the 
first poet titled for his talent in Britain : it has happened 

1 "Don Juan," Cantos III, IV. 

[ 180 ] 



QTATUE of Moses in San Pietro, in Vincoli, 
Rome. Designed by Michel Angelo. 




" Into the marble chaos driven 
His chisel hid the Hebrew^ at whose word 
Israel left Egypt.'"' 

— Prophecy of Daute, Canto IV, p. 172. 



THE YEARS 18.^0 AND 1821 

abroad before now; but on the continent titles are univer- 
sal and worthless. Why don't jou send me Ivanhoe and 
the Monastery ? I have never written to Sir Walter, for I 
know he has a thousand things, and I a thousand nothings, 
to do ; but I hope to see him at Abbotsford before very 
long, and I will sweat his Claret for him, though Italian 
abstemiousness has made my brain but a shilpit ^ concern 
for a Scotch sitting inter pocula. I love Scott and Moore, 
and all the better brethren; but 1 hate and abhor that 
puddle of wat^rworms whom you have taken into your 
troop in the history line I see. I am obliged to end 
abruptly. 

Tours, 

B. 

P. S. — You say that one lialf^ is very good : you are 
wrong ; for, if it were, it would be the finest poem in exist- 
ence. Where is the poetry of which one half is good ? is 
it the ^neid ? is it Milton'^ ? is it Bryden's ? is it any 
one's except Fope'^ and Goldsmith's, of which all is good ? 
and yet these two last are the poets your pond poets would 
explode. Bat if one half oi the two new Cantos be good 
in your opinion, what the devil would you have more? 
No — - no : no poetry is generally good — only by fits and 
starts — and you are lucky to get a sparkle here and there. 
You might as well want a Midnight all stars as rhyme 
all perfect. 

1 Balmawhapple, carousing at Luckie Macleary's, and fortified by the 
Bear and the Hen, "pronounced the claret shilpit, and demanded brandy 
with great vociferation " {Waverhij, Chap. xi). 

^ Of "Don Juan." 

[ 181 1 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

TO THOMAS MOORE 

Eayenna, August 31, 1820. 
• ••••• 

I verilj believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical 
temperament, can avoid a strong passion of some kind. It 
is the poetry of life. What should I liave known or 
written, had I been a quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord 
in waiting ? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is 
no existence. Besides, I only meant to be a Cavalier Ser- 
vente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance^ in the 
Anglo fashion. 

However, I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy — 
more than Lady Morgan has picked up in her posting. 
What do Englishmen know of Italians beyond their 
museums and saloons — and some hack . . . en passant ? 
Now, I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of 
Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers, — have 
seen and become (^pars magna ftti) a portion of their 
hopes, and fears, and passions, and am almost inoculated 
into a family. This is to see men and things as they are. 

You say that I called you " quiet " — I don^t recollect 
anything of the sort. On the contrary, you are always in 
scrapes. 

FEOM BYEON^S DIAEY 

January 29, 1821. 

Eead Schlegel. Of Dante he says, "that at no time 
has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever 
[ 182 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

been much the favourite of his countrymen/' 'T is false ! 
There have been more editors and commentators (and imi- 
tators, ultimately) of Dante than of all their poets put 
together. No£ a favourite! Why, they talk Dante — 
write Dante — and think and dream Dante at this moment 
(1821) to an excess, which would be ridiculous, but that 
he deserves it. 

In the same style this German talks of gondolas on 
the Arno ^ — a precious fellow to dare to speak of 
Italy ! 

He says also that Dante's cliief defect is a want, in 
a word, of gentle feelings. Of gentle feelings ! — and 
Prancesca of Eimini — and the father's feelings in Ugohno 

— and Beatrice — and " La Pia ! '' Why, there is gentle- 
ness in Dante beyond all gentleness, when he is tender. 
It is true that, treating of the Christian Hades, or Hell, 
there is not much scope or site for gentleness — but who 
dul Dante could have introduced any " gentleness '' at all 
into Hell ? Is there any in Milton's ? No — and Dante's 
Heaven is all love, and glory, and majesty. 

Oue o'clock. 
I have found out, however, where the German is right 

— it is about the Vicar of Wakefield. ^' Of all romances 
in miniature (and, perhaps, this is the best shape in 
which Eomance can appear) the Vicar of Wakefield is, I 
think, the most exquisite." He thinks ! — he might be 
sure. But it is very well for a Schlegel. I feel sleepy, 

1 lu Lectiu-e xi {Lectures on the History of Literature, p. 297), speak- 
ing of Tasso, Schlegel says, " Individual parts and episodes of Ms poem are 
frequently sung in the gondolas of the Arno and the Po." 

[ 183 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

and may as well get me to bed. To-morrow there will be 
fine weather. 

" Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay." 

Tebruary 14, 1821. 

Heard the particulars of the late fray at Eussi^ a town 
not far from this. It is exactly the fact of Romeo and 
Giulietta — not Romeo, as the Barbarian writes it. Two 
families of Contadini (peasants) are at feud. At a ball, 
the younger part of the families forget their quarrel, and 
dance together. An old man of one of them enters, and 
reproves the young men for dancing with the females 
of the opposite family. The male relatives of the latter 
resent this. Both parties rush home and arm themselves. 
They meet directly, by moonlight, in the public way, and 
fight it out. Three are killed on the spot, and six 
wounded, most of them dangerously, — pretty well for 
two families, methinks — and all factj of the last week. 
Another assassination has taken place at Cesenna — in all 
about forty in Romagna within the last three months. 
These people retain much of the middle ages. 

February 18, 1821. 
To-day I have had no communication with my Car- 
bonari cronies ; ^ but, in the meantime, my lower apart- 
ments are full of their bayonets, fusils, cartridges, and 
what not. I suppose that they consider me as a depot, 
to be sacrificed, in case of accidents. It is no great 
matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or 

^ Members of the secret society of whicli Byron was the leader. 

[ 184 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

what is sacrificed. It is a grand object — the ^^x^ poetry 
of politics. Only think — a free Italy!!! Why, there 
has been nothing like it since the days of Augustus. I 
reckon the times of Csesar (Julius) free ; because the com- 
motions left every body a side to take, and the parties 
were pretty equal at the set out. But, afterwards, it was 
all praetorian and legionary business — and since! — we 
shall see, or, at least, some will see, what card will turn 
up. It is best to hope, even of the hopeless. The Dutch 
did more than these fellows have to do, in the Seventy 
Years' War. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Ravenna, January 2, 1821. 

With regard to our purposed Journal,^ I will call it 
what you please, but it should be a newspaper, to make 
\ipay. We can call it "The Harp,'' if you like — or any- 
thin o^. 

I feel exactly as you do about our " art,'' but it comes 
over me in a kind of rage every now and then, like . . . , 
and then, if I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. 
As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing, which 
you describe in your friend,^ I do not understand it. I 
feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as 

1 The mention of a Journal at this date shows Byron's ambition, which 
was finally gratified by the publication of The Liberal more than a year 
later. But Moore dropped out of the scheme in the meantime, and Shelley 
and Leigh Hunt tpok it up. 

2 Lord John Russell. 

[ 185 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

d pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great 
pain. 

I wish you to think seriously of the Journal scheme — 
for I am as serious as one can be, in this world, about any- 
thing. As to matters here, they are high and mighty — 
but not for paper. It is much about the state of things 
betwixt Cain and Abel. There is, in fact, no law or 
government at all : and it is wonderful how well things 
go on without them. Excepting a few occasional murders, 
(every body killing whomsoever he pleases, and being 
killed, in turn, by a friend, or relative, of the defunct,) 
there is as quiet a society and as merry a Carnival as can 
be met with in a tour through Europe. There is nothing 
like habit in these things. 

I shall remain here till May or June, and, unless 
'''honour comes unlooked for," we may perhaps meet, in 
Erance or England, within the year. 

Yours, etc. 

Of course, I cannot explain to you existing circum- 
stancesj as they open all letters. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Ravenna, July 5, 1821. 

• • • a . • 

I have had a friend of your Mr. Irving's — a very 
pretty lad — a Mr. Coolidge, of Boston — only somewhat 
too full of poesy and " entusymusy." I was very civil to 
him during his few hours' stay, and talked with him much 
of Irving, whose writings are my delight. But I suspect 
[ 186 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

that he did not take quite so much to me, from his having 
expected to meet a misanthropical gentleman, in wolf- 
skin breeches, and answering in fierce monosyllables, 
instead of a man of this world. I can never get people 
to understand that poetry is the expression of excited 
passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion 
any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal 
fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such 
a state ? 

I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in 
England (I never saw her), who says she is given over 
of a decline, but could not go out of the world without 
thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several 
years, etc., etc., etc. It is signed simply N. N. A. and has 
not a word of "cant"*^ or preachment in it upon any 
opinions. She merely says that she is dying, and that as 
I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, 
she thought that she might say so, begging me to htm 
her letter — which, by the way, I can not do, as I look 
upon sucli a letter in such circumstances as better tlian 
a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a letter from 
Drontheim in Norway (but not from a dying woman), 
in verse, on the same score of gratulation. These are the 
things which make one at times believe one^s self a poet. 
But if I must believe that . . ., and such fellows, 
are poets also, it is better to be out of the corps. 

I am now in the fifth act of Foscari, being the third 

tragedy in twelve months, besides proses ; so you perceive 

that I am not at all idle. And are you, too, busy? I 

doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon your 

[ 187 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

time, which is a pity. Can^t you divide your day, so as 
to combine both? I have had plenty of all sorts of 
worldly business on my hands last year^ and yet it is not 
so difficult to give a few hours to the Muses. This 

sentence is so like . . . that 

Ever, etc. 

If we were together, I should publish both my plays 
(periodically) in owy joint journal It should be our plan 
to publish all our best things in that way. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Ravenna, July 6, 1821. 

At the particular request of the Contessa G. I have 
promised not to continue Bon Juan. You will there- 
fore look upon these 3 cantos as the last of that poem. 
She had read the two first in the French translation, and 
never ceased beseeching me to write no more of it. The 
reason of this is not at first obvious to a superficial 
observer of foreign manners; but it arises from the 
wish of all women to exalt the sentiment of the passions, 
and to keep up the illusion which is .eir empire. Now 
Bon Juan strips off this illusion, and laughs at that and 
most other things. I never knew a woman who did not 
protect RoiisseaUi nor one who did not dislike de Gram- 
mont, Gil Bias, and all the comedy of the passions, when 
brought out naturally. But "King^s blood must keep 
word," as Serjeant Bothwell says. 

Write, you Scamp ! 

[ 188 ] 



5 S v. 



5» a ^ a^ 

o ^ 5 '^^ 



•< ^ 12. 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Your parcel of extracts never came and never will : 
you should have sent it by the post ; but you are growing 
a sad fellow, and some fine day we shall have to dissolve 
partnership. 

TO JOHN MUEEAY 

July 14th, 1821. 

Dear Sir, — According to your wish, I have expedited 
by this post two packets addressed to J. Barrow, Esq'% 
Admiralty, etc. The one contains the returned proofs, 
with such corrections as time permits, of Sardanapalus, 
Tlie other contains the tragedy of The Two Foscari in five 
acts, the argument of which Foscolo or Hobhouse can ex- 
plain to you ; or you will find it at length in P. Daru^s 
history of Venice : also, more briefly, in Sismondi's /. R. 
An outline of it is in the Pleasures of Memory also. The 
name is a dactyl, ^^ Fdscari." Have the goodness to write 
by return of Post, which is essential. 

I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken for a 
political play, which was so far from my intention that I 
thought of nothing but Asiatic history. The Venetian 
play, too, is rigidly historical. My object has been to 
dramatise, like the Greeks (a modest phrase !), striking 
passages of history, as they did of history and mythology. 
You will find all this very 2«;dike Shakespeare ; and so 
much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to bo 
the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of 
writers. It has been my object to be as simple and severe 
as Alfieri, and I have broken down the poetry as nearly as 
I could to common language. The liardship is, that in 
[ 189 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

these times one can neither speak of kings nor Queens 
without susjncion of politics or personalities. I intended 
neither. 

TO JOHN MUUEAY 

[Undated.] 
Dear Sir, — The enclosed letter is written in bad 
humour, but not without provocation. However, let it 
(that is, the bad humour) go for little ; but I must re- 
quest your serious attention to the abuses of the printer, 
which ought never to have been permitted. You forget 
that all the fools in London (the chief purchasers of your 
publications) will condemn in me the stupidity of your 
printer. For instance, in the Notes to Canto fifth, " the 
Adriatic shore of the Bosphorus,''^ instead of the Asiatic ! ! 
All this may seem little to you — so fine a gentleman with 
your ministerial connections ; but it is serious to me, v»^ho 
am thousands of miles off, and have no opportunity of not 
proving myself the fool your printer makes me, except 
your pleasure and leisure, forsooth. 
, The Gods prosper you, and forgive you, for I won^t. 

B. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

R?, September 4th, 1821. 
Dear Sir, — By Saturday's post, I sent you a fierce 
and furibund letter upon the subject of the printer's 
blunders in Bon Juan. I must solicit your attention to 
the toj)ic, though my wrath has subsided into sullenness. 
[ 190 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Yesterday I received Mr. Mawman, a friend of yours, and 
because he is a friend (di yours ; and that ^s more than I would 
do in an English case, except for those v/hom I lionour. 
I was as civil as I could be among packages, even to the 
very chairs and tables ; for I am going to Fisa in a few 
weeks, and have sent and am sending off my chattels. It 
regretted me that, my books and everything being packed, 
I could not send you a few things I meant for you ; but 
they were all sealed and baggaged, so as to have made it a 
Month^s work to get at them again. I gave him an 
envelope, with the Italian Scrap in it,^ alluded to in my 
Gilchrist defence. Hobhouse will make it out for you, 
and it will make you laugh, and him too, the spelling par- 
ticularly. The ^' Mericani" of whom they call me the 
*^ Capo '' (or Chief), means " Americans,^' which is the 
name given in Romagna to a part of the Carbonari ^ ; that 
is to say, to the popular part, the troops of the Carbonari. 
They were originally a society of hunters in the forest, who 
took that name of Americans, but at present comprize 
some thousands, etc. ; but I shan^t let you further into the 
secret, which may be participated with the postmasters. 
Why they thought me their Chief, I know^ not: their 
Chiefs are like ^^ Legion, being Many.'^ However, it is a 
post of more honour than profit, for, now that they are 

1 An anouymous letter which Byron had received, threatening hira with 
assassination. 

2 The Italian Carbonari was a political society whose hond was one of 
disaffection rather than principle. Owing to want of cohesion and diversity 
of political aims, it collapsed, and it met the disapproval of Mazzini and 
later Italian patriots. They took their name from the charcoal-burners 
(Carbonari). 

[ 191 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

persecuted, it is fit that I should aid them ; and so 1 have 
done, as far as my means will permit. They will rise 
again some day, for these fools of the Government are 
blundering : they actually seem to know nothing ; for they 
have arrested and banished many of their own party, and 
let others escape who are not their friends. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Ravenna, September 12t^ 1821. 
Dear Sie, — By Tuesday's post, I forwarded, in three 
packets, the drama of Cain, in three acts, of which I 
request the acknowledgment when arrived. To the last 
speech of Eve, in the last act {i. e. where she curses Cain), 
add these three lines to the concluding one — 

May the Grass wither from thy foot ! the Woods 

Deny thee shelter ! Earth a home ! the Dust 

A Grave ! the Sun his light ! and Heaven her God ! 

There ^s as pretty a piece of Imprecation for you, when 
joined to the lines already sent, as you may wish to meet 
with in the course of your business. But don^t forget the 
addition of the above three lines, which are clinchers to 
Eve's speech. 

Let me know what GifFord thinks (if the play arrives in 
safety) ; for I have a good opinion of the piece, as poetry : 
it is in my gay metaphysical style, and in the Manfred 
line. 

You must at least commend my facility and variety, 
when you consider what I have done within the last fifteen 
[ 192 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

months, with my head, too, full of other and of mundane 
matters. But no doubt you will avoid saying any good of 
it, for fear I should raise the price upon you : that 's right 
— stick to business ! Let me know what your other raga- 
muffins are writing, for I suppose you don^t like starting too 
many of your Vagabonds at once. You may give them 
the start, for anything I care. 

If this arrives in time to be added to the other two 
dramas, publish them together : if not, publish it separately, 
in the same form, to tally for the purchasers. Let me 
have a proof of the whole speedily. It is longer than 
3Ia?t/red. 

Why don't you publish my Fulci ? ^ the best thing I 
ever wrote, with the Italian to it. I wish I was alongside 
of you : nothing is ever done in a man's absence ; every 
body runs counter, because they can. If ever I do return 
to England (which I shan't though), I will write a poem 
to which English Bards, etc., shall be New Milk, in com- 
parison. Your present literary world of mountebanks 
stands in need of such an Avatar; but I am not yet quite 
bilious enough : a season or two more, and a provocation 
or two, will wind me up to the point, and then, have at 
the whole set ! 

I have no patience with the sort of trash you send me 
out by way of books; except Scott's novels, and three or 
four other things, I never saw such work or works. 
Campbell is lecturing, Moore idling, Southey twaddling, 
"Wordsworth drivelling, Coleridge muddling, Joanna Baillie 
piddling, Bowles quibbling, squabbling, and snivelling. 
1 Translation of Pulci's " Morgante Maggiore." 

13 [ 193 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Milman will do, if lie don^t cant too much, nor imitate 
Southej : the fellow has poesj in him ; but he is envious, 
and unhappy, as all the envious are. Still he is among 
the best of the day. Barry Cornwall will do better by- 
and-bye, I dare say, if he don^t get spoilt by green tea, 
and the praises of Pentonville and Paradise Eow. The 
pity of these men is, that they never lived either in high 
life, nor in solitude : there is no medium for the knowl- 
edge of the busy or the still world. If admitted into high 
life for a season, it is merely as spectators — they form no 
part of the Mechanism thereof. Now Moore and I, the 
one by circumstances, and the other by birth, happened to 
be free of the corporation, and to have entered into its 
pulses and passions, quarum partes fimniis. Both of us 
have learnt by this much which nothing else could have 
taught us. 

Yours^ 

B. 

TO THOMAS MOORE 

Ravenna, September, 19, 1821. 
I AM in all the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of an uni- 
versal packing of all my things, furniture, etc., for Pisa, 
whither I go for the winter. The cause has been the exile 
of all my fellow Carbonics, and, amongst them, of the whole 
family of Madame G. ; who, you know, was divorced from 
her husband last week, " on account of P.P., clerk of this 
parish,^^^ and who is obliged to join her father and 

1 An allusion to Pope's " Memoirs of P.P., Clerk of this Parish." 

[ 194 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

relatives, now in exile there, to avoid being shut up in a 
monastery, because the Pope's decree of separation re- 
quired her to reside in casa paterna, or else, for decorum's 
sake, in a convent. As I could not say with Hamlet, 
"Get thee to a nunnery,'' I am preparing to follow 
them. 

It is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's 
projects of good or glory. I wanted to go to Greece 
lately (as everything seems up here) with her brother, 
who is a very fine, brave fellow (I have seen him put to 
the proof), and wild about liberty. But the tears of a 
w^oman who has left her husband for a man, and the 
weakness of one's own hearty are paramount to these 
projects, and I can hardly indulge them. 

We were divided in choice between Switzerland and 
Tuscany, and I gave my vote for Pisa, as nearer the Medi- 
terranean, which I love for the sake of the shores which it 
washes, and for my young recollections of 1809. Switzer- 
land is a curst selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in 
the most romantic region of the world. I never could 
bear the inhabitants, and still less their English visitors ; 
for which reason, after writing for some information about 
houses, upon hearing that there was a colony of English 
all over the cantons of Geneva, etc., I immediately gave up 
the thought, and persuaded the Gambas to do the same. 

Wliat are you doing, and where are you ? in England ? 

Nail Murray — nail him to his own counter — till he shells 

out the thirteens. Since I wrote to you, I have sent him 

another tragedy — Cainhy immc — making three in MS. 

[ 195 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

now in his hands, or in the printer's. It is in the Manfred 
metaphysical stj^e, and full of some Titanic declamation ; 
— Lucifer being one of the drayn. pers., who takes Cain a 
voyage among the stars,, and afterwards to " Hades/^ where 
he shows him the phantoms of a former world, and its in- 
habitants. I have gone upon the notion of Cuvier, that 
the world has been destroyed three or four times, and was 
inhabited by mammoths, behemoths, and what not ; but 
not by man till the Mosaic period, as, indeed, is proved by 
the strata of bones found ; — those of all unknown animals, 
and known, being dug out, but none of mankind. I have, 
therefore, supposed Cain to be shown, in the rational 
Preadamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence 
than man, but totally unlike him in form, and with much 
greater strength of mind and person. You may suppose 
the small talk which takes place between him and Lucifer 
upon these matters is not quite canonical. 

The consequence is, that Cain comes back and kills Abel 
in a fit of dissatisfaction, partly with the politics of Para- 
dise, which had driven them all out of it, and partly because 
(as it is written in Genesis) AbePs sacrifice was the more 
acceptable to the Deity. I trust that the Ehapsody has 
arrived — it is in three acts, and entitled " A Mystery" 
according to the former Christian custom, and in honour 
of what it probably will remain to the reader. 

YourS; etc. 



[ 196 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

FEOM " MARINO FALIEEO, DOGE OF VENICE " 

Act III. Scene I — Scene^ the Space heiween the Canal 
and the Church of San Giovanni e San Paolo. An 
equestrian Statue before it. A Gondola lies in the 
Canal at some distance. 

Enter the Doge alone, disguised. 
Doge {solus) . I am before the liour, the hour whose 
voice, 
Pealing into the arch of night, might strike 
These palaces with ominous tottering, 
And rock their marbles to the corner-stone, 
Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream 
Of indistinct but awful augury 
Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city ! 
Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which makes 

thee 
A lazar-house of tyranny : the task 
Is forced upon me, I have sought it not ; 
And therefore was I punishM, seeing this 
Patrician pestilence spread on and on. 
Until at length it smote me in my slumbers. 
And I am tainted, and must wash away 
The plague spots in the healing wave. Tall fane ! 
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues shadow 
The floor which doth divide us from the dead, 
AVhere all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood. 
Mouldered into a mite of ashes, hold 
In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes. 
When what is now a handful shook the earth — 
[ 197 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house ! 

Vault where two Doges rest — my sires ! ^ who died 

The one of toil, the other in the field. 

With a long race of other lineal chiefs 

And sages, whose great labours, wounds, and state 

I have inherited, — let the graves gape. 

Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead. 

And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me ! 

I call them up, and them and thee to witness 

What it hath been which put me to this task — 

Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories. 

Their mighty name dishonoured all in me. 

Not d?/ me, but by the ungrateful nobles 

We fought to make our equals, not our lords : — 

And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave, 

Who perishM in the field, where I since conquered. 

Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs 

Of thine and Venice' foes, there offered up 

By thy descendant, merit such acquittance ? 

Spirits ! smile down upon me ; for my cause 

Is yours, in all life now can be of yours, — 

Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine. 

And in the future fortunes of our race ! 

Let me but prosper, and I make this city 

Free and immortal, and our house's name 

Worthier of what you were, now and hereafter ! 

^ " All that is said of liis Ancestral Doges as buried in this church is 
altered from the fact, they being in St. Mark's. Make a note of this and 
put Editor as the subscription to it." (Byron, in a letter to Murray, Oct. 
13, 1820.) 

I 198 ] 










o 



h3 o 






THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



Act IV. Scene I. — Palazzo of the Patrician Lioni. 
Ltoni laying aside the mash and cloak which the Vene- 
tian nobles wore in public , attended hy a Domestic, 

Lioni. 

I will to rest, right weary of this revel, 
The gayest we have liekl for many moons. 
And yet, I know not why, it cheered me not ; 
There came a heaviness across my heart. 
Which, in the lightest movement of the dance, 
Though eye to eye, and hand in hand united 
Even with the lady of my love, oppressed me, 
And through my spirit chilFd my blood, until 
A damp like death rose o'er my brow. I strove 
To laugh the thought away, but 't would not be ; 
Through all the music ringing in my ears 
A knell was sounding as distinct and clear, 
Though low and far, as e 'er the Adrian wave 
Eose o'er the city's murmur in the night, 
Dashing against the outward Lido's bulwark : 
So that I left the festival before 
It reached its zenith, and will woo my pillow 
For thoughts more tranquil, or forgetfulness. 
Antonio, take my mask and cloak, and light 
The lamp within my chamber. 

AnL 

Yes, my lord : 
Command you no refreshment ? 
[ 199 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Lioni, 

Nought, save sleep. 
Which will not be commanded. Let me hope it, 

[Exit Antonio. 
Though my breast feels too anxious ; I will try 
Whether the air will calm my spirits ; ■'t is 
A goodly night ; the cloudy wind which blew 
Erom the Levant hath crept into its cave, 
And the broad moon has brighten^. What a still- 
ness ! [ Goes to an o^en lattice. 
And what a contrast with the scene I left. 
Where the tall torches' glare, and silver lamps* 
More pallid gleam along the tapestried walls. 
Spread over the reluctant gloom, which haunts 
Those vast and dimly latticed galleries, 
A dazzling mass of artificial light. 
Which showM all things, but nothing as they were. 
There Age essaying to recall the past. 
After long striving for the hues of youth 
At the sad labour of the toilet, and 
IPull many a glance at the too faithful mirror. 
Pranks forth in all the pride of ornament, 
Forgot itself, and trusting to the falsehood 
Of the indulgent beams, which show, yet hide. 
Believed itself forgotten, and was foolM. 
There Youth, which needed not, nor thought of such 
Vain adjuncts, lavished its true bloom, and health. 
And bridal beauty, in the unwholesome press 
Of flushed and crowded wassailers, and wasted 
[ 200 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Its hours of rest in dreaming this was pleasure. 
And so shall waste them till the sunrise streams 
On sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, which should not 
Have worn this aspect yet for many a year. 
The music, and the banquet, and the wine — 
The garlands, the rose odours, and tlie flowers — 
The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments — 
The white arms and the raven hair — the braids 
And bracelets ; swanlike bosoms, and the necklace. 
An India in itself; yet dazzling not 
The eye like what it circled ; the thin robes, 
Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven ; 
The many-twinkling feet so small and sylphlike, 
Suggesting the more secret symmetry 
Of the fair forms which terminate so well — 
All the delusion of the dizzy scene. 
Its false and true enchantments — art and nature. 
Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank 
The sight of beauty as the parchM pilgrim^s 
On Arab sands the false mirage which offers 
A lucid lake to his eluded thirst, — 
Are gone. Around me are the stars and waters — 
Worlds mirrored in the ocean, goodlier sight 
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass ; 
And the great element, which is to space 
What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths. 
Softened with the first breathings of the spring ; 
The high moon sails upon her beauteous way. 
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls 
Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, 
[ 201 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts. 
Fraught with the orient spoil of many marbles. 
Like altars ranged along the broad canal, 
Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed 
Eear'd up from out the waters, scarce less strangely 
Than those more massy and mysterious giants 
Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics, 
Which point in Egypt's plains to times that have 
No other record. All is gentle : nought 
Stirs rudely ; but, congenial with the night. 
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. 
The tinklings of some vigilant guitars 
Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress, 
And cautious opening of the casement, showing 
That he is not unheard, while her young hand, 
Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part. 
So delicately white, it trembles in 
The act of opening the forbidden lattice. 
To let in love through music, makes his heart 
Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight ; — the dash 
Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle 
Of the far lights of skimming gondolas. 
And the responsive voices of the choir 
Of boatmen answering back with verse for verse ; 
Some dusky shadow checkering the Rialto ; 
Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire. 
Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade 
The ocean-born and earth-commanding city — 
How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm ! 
I thank thee. Night ! for thou hast chased away 
[ 202 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Those horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, 

I could not dissipate ; and with the blessing 

Of thy benign and quiet influence, 

Now will I to my couch, although to rest 

Is almost wronging such a night as this. 



FEOM " THE TWO FOSCAEI '' 

Act I. Scene I. 

(Jacopo Foscari, haviug been imprisoned in Candia on suspicion of 
Climes against the government is brought back to Venice for trial.) 

The Guard conducts Jacopo to a window of the Ducal 
Palace. 

Guard, 

There, sir, ^t is 
Open — How feel you ? 

Jac. Fos. 

Like a boy — Oh, Yenice ! 

Guard. 
And your limbs ? 

Jac, Fos. 
Limbs ! how often have they borne me 
Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimmM 
The gondola along in childish race. 
And, masqued as a young gondolier, amidst 
My gay competitors, noble as I, 
[ 203 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Raced for our 2:)leasure in the pride of strength ; 
Wliile the fair j^opulace of crowding beauties. 
Plebeian as patrician, cheerM us on 
"With dazzling srailes, and wishes audible. 
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands. 
Even to the goal ! — How many a time have I 
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring. 
The wave all roughened ; with a swimmer's stroke 
Flinging the billows back from mj drench\l hair. 
And laughing from mj lip the audacious brine. 
Which kissM it like a wine-cup, rising o'er 
The waves as they arose, and prouder still 
The loftier they uplifted me ; and oft. 
In wantonness of spirit, plunging down 
Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making 
My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen 
By those above, till they waxM fearful ; then 
Eeturning with my grasp full of such tokens 
As showed that I had searchM the deep : exulting. 
With a far-dashing stroke, and drawing deep 
The long-suspended breath, again I spurned 
The foam which broke around me, and pursued 
My track like a sea-bird. — I was a boy then. 

Guard, 
Be a man now : there never was more need 
Of manhood's strength. 

Jac. Fos. {looking from the lattice). 

My beautiful, my own. 
My only Venice — this is breath ! Thy breeze, 
[ S04 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face ! 
Thj very winds feel native to my veins. 
And cool them into calmness ! How unlike 
The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades, 
Whicli howFd about my Candiote dungeon and 
Made my heart sick. 

Guard. 

I see the colour comes 
Back to your cheek : Heaven send you strength to bear 
What more may be imposed ! — I dread to think on 't. 

Jac. Fos. 
They will not banish me again ? — No — no, 
Let them wring on ; I am strong yet. 



Guard. 



Confess, 



And the rack will be spared you. 

Jac. Fos. 

I confessed 
Once — twice before : both times they exiled me. 

Gtmrd. 
And the third time will slay you. 

Jac. Fos. 

Let them do so, 
So I be buried in my birth-place : better 
Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere. 
[ 205 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Guard. 
And can you so much love the soil which hates you ? 

Jac. Fos. 

The soil ! — Oh no, it is the seed of the soil 
Which persecutes me ; but my native earth 
Will take me as a mother to her arms. 
I ask no more than a Venetian grave, 
A dungeon, what they will, so it be here. 
• ••••• 

EROM "CAIN'' 

Act I. Scene I. 
• • • • • • 

Cain [solus). 

And this is 
Life — Toil ! and wherefore should I toil ? — because 
My father could not keep his place in Eden. 
What had / done in this ? — I was unborn : 
I sought not to be born ; nor love the state 
To which that birth has brought me. Why did he 
Yield to the serpent and the woman ? or, 
Yielding, why suffer ? What was there in this ? 
The tree was planted, and why not for him ? 
If not, why place him near it, where it grew. 
The fairest in the centre ? They have but 
One answer to all questions, " 'T was his will. 
And he is good/' How know I that ? Because 
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow ? 
[ 206 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

I judge but by the fruits — and they are bitter — 

Which I must feed on for a fault not mine. 

Whom have we here ? — A shape like to the angels. 

Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect 

Of spiritual essence : why do I quake ? 

Why should I fear him more than other spirits, 

AVliom I see daily wave their fiery sAvords 

Before the gates round which I linger oft. 

In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those 

Gardens which are my just inheritance. 

Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls 

And the immortal trees which overtop 

The cherubim-defended battlements ? 

If I shrink not from these, the fire-armM angels. 

Why should I quail from him who now approaches ? 

Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less 

Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful 

As he hath been, and might be : sorrow seems 

Half of his immortality. And is it 

So ? and can aught grieve save humanity ? 

He cometh. 

Enter Lucifer. 

Lucifer. 
Mortal ! 

Cain. 
Spirit, who art thou ? 

Lucifer. 
Master of spirits. 

[ 207 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Cain, 
And being so^ canst thou 
Leave them, and walk with dust ? 

Lucifer. 

I know the thoughts 
Of dust, and feel for it, and with you. 

Cain, 

How! 

You know my thoughts ? 

Lticifer, 

They are the thoughts of all 
Worthy of thought ; — ''t is your immortal part 
Which speaks within you. 

Cain, 

What immortal part ? 
This has not been reveaPd : the tree of life 
Was withheld from us by my father's folly. 
While that of knowledge, by my mother^s haste. 
Was plucked too soon ; and all the fruit is death ! 

Lucifer. 
They have deceived thee ; thou shalt live. 

Cai7i. 

I live, 
But live to die : and, living, see no thing 
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging, 
[ g08 ] 



s ^ ■ 




O 

?3 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

A loathsome, and yet all invincible 
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I 
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome — 
And so I live. Would I had never lived ! 

Lucifer. 
Thou livest, and must live for ever : think not 
The earth, which is thine outward covering, is 
Existence — it will cease, and thou wilt be 
No less than thoa art now. 

Cain. 

No less f and why 



No more ? 



And ye 



Lucifer. 
It may be thou shalt be as we. 

Cain. 

Lucifer, 
Are everlasting, 

Cain. 

Are ye happy ? 

Lucifer. 
We are mighty, 

Cain. 
Are ye happy ? 

Lucifer. 

No ; art thou ? 
H [ 209 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Cain. 
How should I be so ? Look on me ! 

Lucifer. 

Poor clay ! 
And thou pretendest to be wretched ! Thou ! 

Cain. 
I am : — and thou_, with all thy mighty what art thou ? 

L^icifer. 
One who aspired to be what made thee^ and 
Would not have made thee what thou art. 

Cain. 

Ah! 
Thou look'st almost a god ; and — 

Lucifer. 

I am none : 
And having faiFd to be one, would be nought 
Save what I am. He conquerM ; let him reign ! 

Cain, 
Who? 

Lucifer. 
Thy sire's Maker and the earth's. 

Cain. 

And heaven's. 
And all that in them is. So I have heard 
His seraphs sing ; and so my father saitli. 
[ 210 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AxND 1821 

Lucifer, 
They say — what they must sing and say on pain 
Of being that which I am — and tliou art — 
Of spirits and of men. 

Cain. 
And what is that ? 

Lucifer. 
Souls who dare use their immortality — 
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in 
His everlasting face, and tell him that 
His evil is not good ! If he has made. 
As he saith — which I know not, nor believe — 
But, if he made us — he cannot unmake : 
We are immortal ! — nay, he M have us so. 
That he may torture : let him ! He is great — 
But, in his greatness, is no happier than 
We in our conflict ! Goodness would not make 
Evil ; and what else hath he made ? But let him 
Sit on his vast and solitary throne, 
Creating worlds, to make eternity 
Less burthensome to his immense existence 
And unparticipated solitude ; 
Let him crowd orb on orb : he is alone 
Indefinite, indissoluble tyrant ; 
Could he but crush himself, 't were the best boon 
He ever granted : but let him reign on. 
And multiply himself in misery ! 
Spirits and men, at least we sympathise — 
[ 211 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And, suffering in concert, make our pangs, 

Innumerable, more endurable, 

By the unbounded sympathy of all 

With all ! But He! so wretched in his height, 

So restless in his wretchedness, must still 

Create, and re-create — 

Cam. 

Thou speak^st to me of things which long have swum 
In visions through my thought : I never could 
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. 
My father and my mother talk to me 
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees : I see 
The gates of wliat they call their Paradise 
Guarded by fiery-sworded cherubim. 
Which shut them out, and me : I feel the weight 
Of daily toil and constant thought : I look 
Around a world where I seem nothing, with 
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they 
Could master all things : — but I thought alone 
This misery was mine. — My father is 
Tamed down ; my mother has forgot the mind 
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk 
Of an eternal curse ; my brother is 
A watching shepherd boy, who offers up 
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids 
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat ; 
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn 
Than the birds' matins ; and my Adah, my 
Own and beloved, she, too, understands not 
[ 212 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The mind which overwhehns me : never till 

Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 

■'T is well — I ratlier would consort with spirits. 

Lucifer. 
And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul 
For such companionship, I would not now 
Have stood before thee as I am : a serpent 
Had been enough to charm ye, as before. 

Cain. 
Ah ! didst thou tempt ray mother ? 

Lucifer. 

I tempt none. 
Save Avith the truth : was not the tree, the tree 
Of knowledge ? and was not the tree of life 
Still fruitful ? Did / bid her pluck them not ? 
Did / plant things prohibited within 
The reach of beings innocent, and curious 
By their own innocence ? I would have made ye 
Gods ; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye 
Because ' ye should not eat the fruits of life. 
And become gods as we/ Were those his words ? 

Cain. 
They were, as I have heard from those who heard them, 
In thunder. 

Lucifer. 

Then who was the demon ? He 
Who would not let ye live, or he who would 
[ 213 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Have made ye live for ever in the joy 
And power of knowledge ? 

Cain. 

Would they had snatched both 
The fruits, or neither ! 

Lucifer. 

One is yours already ; 
The other may be still. 

Cain. 

How so ? 

Lucifer. 

By being 
Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can 
Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself 
And centre of surrounding things — 't is made 
To sway. 

Cain. 

But didst thou tempt my parents ? 

Lucifer. 

I? 
Poor clay ! what should I tempt them for, or how ? 

Cain. 
They say the serpent was a spirit. 

Lttcifer. 

Who 
Saith that ? It is not written so on high .: 
[ 214 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The proud One will not so far falsify, 
Though man's vast fears and little vanity 
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature 
His own low failing. The snake was the snake — 
No more ; and yet not less than those he tempted, 
In nature being earth also — more in wisdom, 
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew 
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. 
ThinFst thou I 'd take the shape of things that die ? 

Cain. 
But the thing had a demon ? 

Lucifer. 

He but woke one 
In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 
I tell thee that the serpent was no more 
Than a mere serpent : ask the cherubim 
"Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages 
Have rolFd o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, 
The seed of the then world may thus array 
Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute 
To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all 
That bows to him who made things but to bend 
Before his sullen, sole eternity ; 
But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 
Fond parents listened to a creeping thing, 
And fell. For what should spirits tempt them ? What 
Was there to envy in the narrow bounds 
Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade 

[ 215 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Space — but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not, 
With all tliy tree of knowledge. 

Cain. 

But thou canst not 
Speak aught of knowledge which I would not know. 
And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind 
To know. 

Lucifer. 
And heart to look on ? 

Cain. 

Be it proved. 

Lucifer. 
Darest thou to look on Death ? 

Cain. 

He has not yet 
Been seen. 

Lucifer. 
But must be undergone. 

Cain. 

My father 
Says he is something dreadful, and my mother 
"Weeps when he 's named ; and Abel lifts his eyes 
To heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth, 
And sighs a prayer ; and Adah looks on me, 
And speaks not. 

[ 216 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lucifer, 
And thou? 

Cain. 

Thoughts unspeakable 
Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear 
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, 
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him? 
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy. 
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe. 

Lucifer. 
It has no shape ; but will absorb all things 
That bear the form of earth-born being. 

Cain, 

Ah! 
I thought it was a being : who could do 
Such evil things to beings save a being ? 

Lucifer, 
Ask the Destroyer. 



Who? 

Lucifer. 

The Maker — call him 
Which name thou wilt : he makes but to destroy. 

Cain. 
I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard 
Of death ; although I know not what it is, 
[ 217 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out 

In the vast desolate night in search of him ; 

And when I saw gigantic shadows in 

The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered 

By the far-flashing of the cherubs^ swords, 

I watch'd for what I thought his coming ; for 

With fear rose longing in my heart to know 

What 't was which shook us all — but nothing came. 

And then I turnM my weary eyes from off 

Our native and forbidden Paradise, 

Up to the lights above us, in the azure. 

Which are so beautiful : shall they, too, die ? 

Lucifer. 
Perhaps — but long outlive both thine and thee. 

Cain. 
I ■'m glad of that : I would not have them die — 
They are so lovely. What is death ? I fear, 
I feel, it is a dreadful thing ; but what, 
I cannot compass : ''t is denounced against us, 
Both them who sinn'd and sinned not, as an ill — 
WhatiU? 

I/ucifer. 
To be resolved into the earth. 



But shall I know it ? 



I cannot answer. 



Cain. 

Lucifer. 
As I know not death, 

[ 218 ] 



^ ^ Q 

- I r 



^ Si- 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Cain. 
Were I quiet earth 
That were no evil ; would I ne'er had been 
Aught else but dust ! 

Lucifer. 
That is a grovelling wish, 
Less than thy father's, for he wished to know. 

Cain. 
But not to live, or wherefore pluck'd he not 
The life-tree? 

Lucifer, 
He was hindered. 

Cain. 

Deadly error ! 
Not to snatch first that fruit : — but ere he pluck'd 
The knowledge, he was ignorant of death. 
Alas ! I scarcely now know what it is. 
And yet I fear it — fear I know not what ! 

Jjiicifer. 
And I, who know all things, fear nothing : see 



What is true knowledge. 



Cain. 

Wilt thou teach me all ? 



Lucifer. 
Ay, upon one condition 

[ 219 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Cain, 
Name it. 

Lucifer. 

That 
Thou dost fall down and worship me — thy Lord. 

Cain. 
Thou art not the Lord my father worships. 

Lucifer, 

No. 

Cain, 
His equal ? 

Lmcifer. 

No ; — I have nought in common with him 
Nor would : I would be aught above — beneath — 
Aught save a sharer or a servant of 
His power. I dwell apart ; but I am great : — 
Many there are who worship me^, and more 
Who shall — be thou amongst the first. 

Enter Adah. 

Adah, 

My brother, I have come for thee; 
It is our hour of rest and joy — and we 
Have less without thee. Thou hast labour'd not 
[ 220 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

This morn; but I have done thy task : the fruits 
Are ripe^ and glowing as the light which ripens ; 
Come away. 

Cain. 

Seest thou not ? 

Adah. 

I see an angel ; 
We have seen many : will he share our hour 
Of rest ? — he is welcome. 

Cain. 
But he is not like 
The angels we have seen. 

Adah. 

Are, there, then, others? 
But he is welcome, as they were : they deign'd 
To be our guests — will he ? 

Cain (to Lncifer'). 

Wilt thou ? 

Lucifer. 

I ask 
Thee to be mine. 

Cain. 
I must away with him. 

Adah. 
And leave us ? 

[ 221 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Cain, 

Ay. 

Adah. 
And me ? 

Cain. 

Beloved Adah ! 

Adah. 
Let me go witli thee. 

Lucifer. 
No, she must not. 

Adah. 

Who 
Art thou that steppest between heart and heart ? 

Cain. 
He is a god. 

Adah. 
How know^st thou ? 

Cain. 

He speaks like 
A god. 

Adah. 

So did the serpent, and it lied. 
[ 222 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lucifer. 

Thou errest, Adah ! — was not the tree that 
Of knowledge ? 

Adah. 
Ay — to our eternal sorrow. 

Lucifer, 

And yet that grief is knowledge — so he lied not : 
And if he did betray you, 'i was with truth ; 
And truth in its own essence cannot be 
But good. 

Adah. 

But all we know of it has gathered 
Evil on ill : expulsion from our home. 
And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness ; 
Eemorse of that which was — and hope of that 
Which Cometh not. Cain ! walk not with this spirit. 
Bear with what we have borne, and love me — I 
Love thee. 

Lucifer. 

More than thy mother and thy sire ? 

Adah. 
I do. Is that a sin, too ? 

Lucifer. 

No, not yet : 
It one day will be in your children. 
[ 223 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Adah. 

What ! 
Mast not my daughter love her brother Enoch ? 

Lucifer, 
Not as thou lovest Cain. 

Adah. 

Oh, my God ! 
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love 
Out of their love ? have they not drawn their milk 
Out of this bosom ? was not he, their father, 
Born of the same sole womb, in the same hour 
With me ? did we not love each other ? and 
In multiplying our being multiply 
ThhiECs which will love each other as we love 
Them ? — And as I love thee, my Cain ! go not 
Forth with this spirit ; he is not of ours. 

Lucifer. 

The sin I speak of is not of my making, 
And cannot be a sin in you — whatever 
It seem in those who will replace ye in 
Mortality. 

Adah. 

What is the sin which is not 
Sin in itself ? Can circumstance make sin 
Or virtue ? — if it doth, we are the slaves 
Of — 

[ 224 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lucifer, 

Higher things than ye are slaves : and higher 
Than them or ye would be so, did they not 
Prefer an independency of torture 
To the smooth agonies of adulation, 
In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers, 
To that which is omnipotent, because 
It is omnipotent, and not from love, 
But terror and self-hope. 

Adah. 
Omnipotence 



Must be all goodness. 



Lucifer, 
Was it so in Eden? 



Adah. 

Fiend ! tempt me not with beauty ; thou art fairer 
Than was the serpent, and as false. 

Lucifer, 

As true. 
Ask Eve, your mother : bears she not the knowledge 
Of good and evil ? 

Adah. 

Oh, my mother ! thou 
Hast plucks a fruit more fatal to thine offspring 
Than to thyself ; thou at the least hast passM 
15 [ 225 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent 

And happy intercourse with happy spirits : 

But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 

Are girt about by demons, wlio assume 

The words of God and tempt us with our own 

Dissatisfied and curious thoughts — as thou 

Wert worked on by the snake in thy most flush'd 

And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss. 

I cannot answer this immortal thing 

Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him; 

I look upon him with a pleasing fear. 

And yet I fly not from him : in his eye 

There is a fastening attraction which 

Pixes my fluttering eyes on his ; my heart 

Beats quick ; he awes me, and yet draws me near. 

Nearer, and nearer : — Cain — Cain — save me from him ! 

Cain, 
What dreads my Adah ? This is no ill spirit. 

Adah, 
He is not God — nor God's : I have beheld 
The cherubs and the seraphs ; he looks not 
Like them. 

Cain. 
But there are spirits loftier still — 
The archangels. 

Lucifer, 
And still loftier than the archangels. 
Adah. 
Ay — but not blessed. 

[ 226 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lucifer. 
If the blessedness 
Consists in slavery — no. 

Adah. 
I have heard it said. 
The seraphs love most — cherubim knoio most ; 
And this should be a cherub — since he loves not. 

Lucifer. 
And if the higher knowledge quenches love, 
What must he he you cannot love when known ? 
Since the all-knoAving cherubim love least, 
The seraphs^ love can be but ignorance : 
That they are not compatible, the doom 
Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves. 
Choose betwixt love and knowledge — since there is 
No other choice. Your sire has chosen already ; 
His worship is but fear. 

Adah. 
Oh, Cain ! choose love. 

Cain. 
For thee, my Adah, I choose not — it was 
Born with me — but I love nought else. 

Adah. 

Our parents ? 
Cain. 
Did they love us when they snatched from the tree 
That which hath driven us all from Paradise ? 
[ 227 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Adah. 
We were not born then — and if we had been, 
Should we not love them and our children, Cain ? 

Cain. 
My little Enoch ! and his lisping sister ! 
Could I but deem them happy, I would half 
Forget — but it can never be forgotten 
Through thrice a thousand generations ! never 
Shall men love the remembrance of the man 
Who sow^d the seed of evil and mankind 
In the same hour ! They pluck^l the tree of science. 
And sin — and not content with their own sorrow, 
Begot me — thee — and all the few that are, 
And all the unnumbered and innumerable 
Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be, 
To inherit agonies accumulated 
By ages ! — and / must be sire of such things ! 
Thy beauty and thy love — my love and joy. 
The rapturous moment and the placid hour, 
All we love in our children and each other. 
But lead them and ourselves through many years 
Of sin and pain — or few, but still of sorrow, 
Intercheck'd with an instant of brief pleasure, 
To Death — the unknown! Methinks the tree of 

knowledge 
Hath not fulfilPd its promise : ■ — if they sinnM, 
At least they ought to have known all things that are 
Of knowledge — and the mystery of death. 
[ 228 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

What do they know ? — that they are miserable. 
What need of snakes and fruits to teach ns that ? 

Adah, 
I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou 
Wert happy — 

Cain. 
Be thou happy, then, alone — 
I will have nought to do with happiness. 
Which humbles me and mine. 

Adah. 

Alone I could not, 
Nor wo2dd be happy : but with those around us, 
I think I could be so, despite of death, 
Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though 
It seems an awful shadow — if I may 
Judge from what I have heard. 

Lucifer. 

And thou couldst not 
Alone J thou say'st, be happy ? 

Adah. 

Alone ! Oh, my God ! 
Who could be happy and alone, or good ? 
To me my solitude seems sin ; unless 
When I think how soon I shall see my brother. 
His brother, and our children, and our parents. 

Lucifer. 
Yet thy God is alone ; and is he happy, 
Lonely, and good ? 

[ 229 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Adah. 
He is not so ; he hath 
The angels and the mortals to make happy. 
And thus becomes so in diffusing joy. 
What else can joy be, but the spreading joy ? 

Lucifer. 

Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from Eden ; 
Or of his first-born son : ask your own heart ; 
It is not tranquil. 

Adah. 
Alas, no ! and you — Are you of heaven ? 

Lucifer. 

If I am not, enquire 
The cause of this all-spreading happiness 
(Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good 
Maker of life and living things ; it is 
His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear. 
And some of us resist, and both in vain. 
His seraphs say ; but it is worth the trial. 
Since better may not be without. There is 
A wisdom in the spirit, which directs 
To right, as in the dim blue air the eye 
Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon 
The star which w^atches, welcoming the morn. 

Adah. 
It is a beautiful star ; I love it for 
Its beauty. 

[ 230 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lucifer. 
And why not adore ? 

Adah. 

Our father 
Adores the Invisible only. 

Lucifer, 
But the symbols 
Of the Invisible are the loveliest 
Of what is visible ; and yon bright star 
Is leader of the host of heaven. 
Adah. 

Our father 
Saith that he has beheld the God himself 
Who made him and our mother. 
Lucifer. 

Hast ihou seen him ? 

Adah. 

Yes — in his works. 

Jjucifer. 
But in his being ? 

Adah. 

No — 
Save in my father, who is God's own image; 
Or in his angels, who are like to thee — 
And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful 
In seeming : as the silent sunny noon, 
All light, they look upon us ; but thou seem'st 
[ 231 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Like an ethereal night, where long white clouds 
Streak the deep purple, and unnumbered stars 
Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault 
With things that look as if they would be suns ; 
So beautiful, unnumber'd, and endearing, 
Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them, 
They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. 



[ S32 1 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 



"PORTRAIT of Byron painted by Vincenzo Camuccini. 
Now in eallerv of S. Luca, Rome. 




THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

PISA : LEGHORN: GENOA 
INTRODUCTORY 

yfT about the time of Byron's removal to Pisa, 
^/g tlie three dramas — ^' Sardanapalus,'' ''The 
Two Foscari,'' and *' Cain " — were published 
together i/n a single volume, " Cain " aroused at once 
a tremendous outcry. Although Goethe praised it 
extravagantly and Shelley called it " apocalyptic,'^ 
Byron's countrymen in England denounced it as 
blasphemous, devilish, satanic, and every similar 
adjective in the language. Abuse was heaped not 
only on author, but on publisher. John Murray not 
only was attacked in journals and pamphlets, but 
he was also threatened with prosecution in the courts 
for " disseminating moral poison." Jeffrey, in the 
" Edinburgh Review," called it " an argument di- 
rected against the goodness and power of the Deity 
and against the reasonableness of religion in general." 
Tliis was the attitude of the English public at large. 
Byron, in his early letters to his friends from Pisa, 
makes eloquent defence. 

To the reader of " Cain," in the year 1906, when 
so many things in controversy in 1822 have become 
accepted beliefs, the excitement seems out of all pro- 
[ 235 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

'portion to the cause. " Cain " was indeed a protest 
against the prevailing theology of the day; but 
Wordsworth had already led the way by his revolt 
against the mechanical interpretation of the universe, 
Shelley was prophesying a regeneration through the 
gentle means of faithfulness and love, and Byron's 
note, although of sterner and more defiant tone, was 
in unison with these other poets, and with advanced 
thinkers generally. 

With the publication of Byron^s next drama, 
" Werner,"" his connection with Murray as publisher 
and, except at rare intervals, as correspondent, is at 
an end. Murray had no wish to encounter fresh 
obloquy by publishing the new cantos (VI— XI) of 
" Don Juan," and he held the manuscript of " The 
Vision of Judgment *' so long that Byron naturally 
grew impatient and recalled it. The copyrights of 
future poems were transferred to John Hunt. 

But by this time that " Journal of his own," of 
which he had been dreaming for years, and for which 
he and Shelley had been preparing the way for 
months, was now ready, and the first issue of " The 
Liberal " appeared October 15, 1822. The articles 
from Byron were " The Vision of Judgment," a prose 
" Letter to the Editor of * My Grandmother's Re- 
view ' " (the British), and some " Epigrams on Lord 
Castlereagh." Shelley, whose death, however, occurred 
before the day of publication, had contributed " May- 
day Night," a translation from Goethe's '* Faust "; 
[ 236 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

the remainder of the articles were hy the editor, LeigJi 
Hunt. It was published in England hy the editor's 
brother, John Hunt, and it was at once -fiercely at- 
tacked on all sides. The " Literary Gazette " in 
describing its contents said, " Lord Byron has con- 
tributed impiety, vulgarity, inhumanity, and heart- 
lessness; Mr. Shelley, a burlesque upon Goethe; and 
Mr. Leigh Hunt, conceit, trumpery, ignorance, and 
wretched verse.'' The daily press was even more vio- 
lent, " The Courier " calling it a " scoundrel-like pub- 
lication,'' " a foul blot upon our national literature." 
The periodical was short-lived, ceasing with its fourth 
number in July, 1823;^ — were any similar number of 
pages ever printed at a greater price of happiness, 
friendship, even life itself? Leigh Hunt with invalid 
wife and seven children had been brought from Eng- 
land and settled in the lower floor of Byron's palace 
at Pisa, where the two families speedily became so 
obnoxious to each other that future co-operation be- 
came almost impossible; the voyage which cost Shelley 
his life was made in returning to his own home after 
going to greet his friend and to help establish him in 
his new home; and Leigh Hunt, after the deaths of 
both his partners, found himself and family stranded, 
almost a beggar, in a foreign land. 

But notwithstanding all misadventures, the nearly 

two years which Byron spent at Pisa, including his 

summer residence at Leghorn, are the years of his 

life which the admirers of his poetry can regard with 

[ 237 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

least apology. He had the daily companionship of 
Shelley — Byron was always at his best with Shelley 
— and the rest of that congenial company which in- 
cluded Edward and Jane Williams, Medwin, Trelaw- 
ney, Taafe, and, of course, the Gamhas. West, the 
American artist who painted his portrait at that time, 
says, " Upon the whole, I left him with an impression 
that he possessed an excellent heart which had been 
misconstrued on all hands from little else than a reck- 
less levity of manners which he took a whimsical pride 
in opposing to those of other people. ^^ 

Byron's household continued to be carefully watched 
at Pisa, as it had been at Ravenna, by the agents of 
the Austrian government. An Italian version of " The 
Prophecy of Dante'' had appeared, and was declared 
" not written in the spirit of our Government or any 
Italian Government. Lord Byron makes Dante his 
spokesman and the prophet of democratic independ- 
ence, as if this were the salvation of Italy," etc., etc. 
Moreover, a street riot, beginning between the servants 
of the Byron household and a Pisan sergeant-major, 
ended by involving both servants and masters in a 
trial at court which dragged on for several weeks. 
The government being anxious to be rid of the whole 
party took advantage of this and a subsequent offence 
against local laws at the Leghorn villa to warn the 
Gambas that unless they left the country within three 
days formal sentence of banishment would be passed 
upon them. A respite of a few days was granted, 
[ 238 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

however^ hut in July^ 1822, they took 'passports for 
Genoa; thither Byron followed them in the month of 
September. 

The new home was the Villa Saluzzo at Albaro, 
about two miles from Genoa. Here Byron continued 
''Don Juan,'' with cantos XII— XVI, and wrote also 
another satire, *' The Age of Bronze,'' an idyllic 
tale of the South Seas, and " The Island." Here 
also he was visited by Captain Blaquiere sent by a 
London Committee to urge him to take command of 
an expedition to Greece to aid in the war for Greek 
independence. Byron could not long resist an appeal 
so flattering as well as so congenial, and after but 
little hesitation consented, sailing July H, 1823, 
With the remaining nine months of his life, until his 
death on the 19th of April, 182^, this volume is not 
concerned. Politics and war now usurped the place 
of poetry; his correspondence henceforth relates 
almost exclusively to procuring from England every 
penny of his income for the cause he had at heart; 
his whole energy is given to mitigating the necessary 
horrors of war, and to introducing humanity in the 
treatment of prisoners. 

" Nothing in his life became him like the leaving 
of it "; hard men, comparative strangers, wept over 
his death, and the Greek Governor-General confessed 
his own inadequacy to his task when left without his 
chief counsellor. 

A monument in Athens commemorates Byron's 
[ 239 ] 



WITH BYRON LN ITALY 

memory; hut neither the Greek wish — that he might 
he huried in the temple of Theseus — nor his own 
— to he huried in Italian soil — was granted, and the 
hody was taken to England in the expectation that 
it would he placed in Westminster Abbey. This being 
denied by the Dean of the Abbey, Byron was laid to 
rest among his ancestors in the village church of 
Hucknall Torkard, near Nottingham, A mural tab- 
let, placed by his half-sister, is inscribed to his mem- 
ory. There is no epitaph; but he who seeks this spot 
will recall there Shelley^ s lines from ^^Adonais "; 

Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 

Over his living head like Heaven was bent 

An early but enduring monument. 



FROM '^DETACHED THOUGHTS'' 

1. 

Oh ! talk not to me of a name great in story ; 
The days of our Youth are the days of our Glory, 
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two and twenty 
Are worth all your laurels though ever so plenty. 

2. 

"What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is 

wrinkled ? 
'T is but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled : 
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary, 
What care I for the wreaths that can o?zl^ give Glory ? 
[ MO ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

3. 
Oh ! Fame ! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 
'T was less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, 
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover 
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her. 

4. 
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee ; 
Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee. 
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, 
I knew it was love, and I felt it was Glory. 

I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) 
a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa. 
Pisa, Nov. 6'^^ 1821. 

TO JOHN MUREAY 

Pisa, December 4, 1821. 

I have got here into a famous old feudal palazzo on the 
Arno, large enough for a garrison, with dungeons below 
and cells in the walls, and so full of Ghosts^ that the 
learned Fletcher (my valet) has begged leave to change 
his room, and then refused to occupy his new room, 
because there were more ghosts there than in the other. 
It is quite true that there are most extraordinary noises 
(as in all old buildings), which have terrified the servants 
so as to incommode me extremely. There is one place 
where people were evidently walled up ; for there is but 
one possible passage, broken through the wall, and then 
meant to be closed again upon the inmate. The house 
16 [ 241 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

belonged to the Lanfraiiclii family. (the same mentioned by 
Ugolino in his dream, as his persecutor with Sismondi), 
and has had a fierce owner or two in its time. The stair- 
case, etc., is said to have been built by Michel Agnolo 
(sic). It is not yet cold enough for a fire. What a 
climate ! 

I am, however, bothered about these spectres (as they 
say the last occupants were, too), of whom I have as yet 
seen nothing, nor, indeed, heard {inyself) \ but all the other 
ears have been regaled by all kinds of supernatural sounds. 
The first night I thought I heard an odd noise, but it has 
not been repeated. I have now been here more than a 

month. 

Yours, 

Byron. 

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT 

Pisa, January 12, 1822. 

I am glad you accepted the inscription.^ I meant to 
have inscribed The Foscarmi to you instead ; but, first, I 
heard that Cain was thought the least bad of the two as a 
composition ; and, 2dly, I have abused Southey like a 
pickpocket, in a note to The Foscarini, and I recollected 
that he is a friend of yours (though not of mine), and tliat 
it would not be the handsome thing to dedicate to one 
friend anything containing such matters about another. 
However, I ''11 work the Laureate before I have done with 

1 Tlio dedication of " Cain." 

[ 242 ] 



►ALAZZO Lanfranchi, now called Toscanelli. 
Design attributed to Michel Ansrelo. 




Byron s residence in Pisa. 

— See Letter to John Murray, p. 241. 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

liim^ as soon as I can muster Billingsgate therefor. I like 
a row, and always did from a boy, in the course of which 
propensity, I must needs say, that I have found it the 
most easy of all to be gratified, personally and poetically. 
You disclaim " jealousies ^^ ; but I would ask, as Boswell 
did of Johnson, "of ivliom could you be jealous?" — of 
none of the living certainly, and (taking all and all into 
consideration) of which of ihx^ dead ? I don't like to bore 
you about the Scotch novels (as they call them, though two 
of them are wholly English, and the rest half so), but noth- 
ing can or could ever persuade me, since I was the first ten 
minutes in your company, that you are not the man. To 
me those novels have so much of " Auld lang syne '' (I 
was bred a canny Scot till ten years old), that I never 
move w^ithout them ; and when I removed from Ravenna 
to Pisa the other day, and sent on my library before, they 
were the only books that I kept by me, although I already 
have them by heart. 

January 27, 1822. 
I delayed till now concluding, in the hope that I should 
have got The F irate, who is under way for me, but has 
not yet hove in sight. I hear that your daughter is mar- 
ried, and I suppose by this time you are half a grand- 
father — a young one, by the way. I have heard great 
things of Mrs. Lockhart's j^ersonal and mental charms, and 
much good of her lord : that you may live to see as many 
novel Scotts as there are Scott's novels, is the very bad 
pun, but sincere wish of 

Yours ever most affectionately, etc. 
[ 243 ] 



WITH BYROx\ IN ITALY 

P. S. — Why don't you take a turn in Italy? You 
would find yourself as well known and as welcome as in 
the Highlands among the natives. As for the English, 
you would be with them as in London ; and I need not 
add, that I should be delighted to see you again, which 
is far more than I shall ever feel or say for England, or 
(with a few exceptions " of kith, kin, and allies '') any- 
thing that it contains. But my "heart warms to the 
tartan," or to anything of Scotland, which reminds me 
of Aberdeen and other parts, not so far from the High- 
lands as that town, about Livercauld and Braemar, where 
I was sent to drink goat's/*^^ in 1795-6, in consequence 
of a threatened decline after the scarlet fever. But I am 
gossiping, so, good-night — and the gods be with your 
dreams ! 

Pray, present my respects to Lady Scott, who may, 
perhaps, recollect having seen me in town in 1815. 

I see that one of your supporters (for, like Sir Hilde- 
brand, I am fond of Guillim) is a mermaid ; it is my 
crest too, and with precisely the same curl of tail. There 's 
concatenation for you : — I am building a little cutter at 
Genoa, to go a-cruising in the summer. I know i/ou like 
the sea, too. 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Pisa, Fy S^*^ 1822. 

Dear Sir, — Attacks upon me were to be expected ; 
but I perceive one upon ^ou in the papers, which I con- 
fess that I did not expect. How, or in what manner, 
[ 244 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

yoti ^ can be considered responsible for M^mt / publish, I 
am at a loss to conceive. 

If Cain be " blasphemous/-' Paradise Lost is "blasphe- 
mous/^ and the very words of the Oxford Gentleman, 
"Evil, be thou my Good^'' are from that very poem, from 
the mouth of Satan ; and is there anything more in that 
of Lucifer in the Mystery ? Cai)i is nothing more than 
a drama, not a piece of argument : if Lucifer and Cain 
speak as the first Murderer and the first Eebel may be 
supposed to speak, surely all the rest of the personages 
talk also according to their characters — and the stronger 
passions have ever been permitted to the drama. 

I have even avoided introducing the Deity, as in 
Scripture (though Milton does, and not very wisely 
either) ; but have adopted his Angel as sent to Cain 
instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings on the 
subject by falling short of what all uninspired men must 
fall short in, viz., giving an adequate notion of the effect 
of the presence of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries intro- 
duced him liberally enough, and all this is avoided in the 
New one. 

The Attempt to bulli/ you, because they think it won^t 
succeed with me, seems to me as atrocious an attempt as 
ever disgraced the times. What ? when Gibbon^s, Hume's, 
Priestley's, and Drummond's publishers have been al- 
lowed to rest in peace for seventy years, are you to be 

^ As the publisher of " Cain," Murray had been attacked in a pamphlet 
called "A Remonstrance " signed " Oxoniensis." The writer took the posi- 
tion : " You are responsible to that society whose institutions you con- 
tribute to destroy ; and to those individuals whose dearest hopes you insult, 
and would annihilate." 

[ 245 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

singled out for a work of fiction^ not of history or argu- 
ment? There must be something at the bottom of this 
— some private enemy of your own: it is otherwise 
incredible. 

I can only say, Me, me ; en adsum qiiifeci, — that any 
proceedings directed against you, I beg, may be transferred 
to me, who am willing, and ought, to endure them all > 
that if you have lost money by the publication, I will 
refund any or all of the Copyright; that I desire you will 
say, that both i/oii and Mr. Gijford remonstrated against 
the publication, as also Mr. Hobhouse ; that / alone occa- 
sioned it, and I alone am the person who, either legally 
or otherwise, should bear the burthen. If they prosecute, 
I will come to England — that is, if, by meeting it in my 
own person, I can save yours. Let me know : you sha'n't 
suffer for me, if 1 can help it. — Make any use of this 
letter which you please. 

Yours ever, 

Byron. 

P. S. — You will now perceive that it was as well for 
you, that I have decided upon changing my publisher; 
though that was not my motive, but dissatisfaction at one 
or two things in your conduct, of no great moment perhaps 
even then. But now, all such things disappear in my 
regret at having been unintentionally the means of getting 
you into a scrape. Be assured that no momentary irrita- 
tion (at real or supposed omissions or commissions) shall 
ever prevent me from doing you justice when you deserve 
it, or that I will allow you (if I can avoid it), to partici- 
pate in any odium or persecution, which ought to fall on 
[ 246 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

me only. I had been laughing with some of my corre- 
spondents at the rumours, etc., till I saw this assault upon 
you ; and I should at that too, if I did not think that it 
may perhaps hurt your feelings or your business. 

When you. re-publish (if you do so) The Foscari, etc., 
etc., to the note upon Southey add Mr. Southey's ansiver 
(which was in the papers) : this is but fair play ; and I do 
not desire it out of an affected contempt. What my 
rejoinder to him will be, is another concern, and is not 
for publication. Let me have your answer : remember 
ore to Gilford, and do not forget to state that both you 
and he objected to publishing Cain in its present form. 
As for what the Clergyman says of Bon Juan, you 
have brought it upon yourself by your absurd half and 
half prudery, which, I always foresaw, would bother you 
at last. An author^s not putting his name, is nothing — 
it has been always the custom to publish a thousand anony- 
mous things ; but who ever heard before of a publisher'' s 
affecting such a Masquerade as yours was ? However, 
now, you may put my name to the Juans, if you like it, 
though it is of the latest to be of use to you. I always 
stated to you, that m?/ only objection was, in case of the 
law deciding against you, tliat they would annihilate my 
guardianship of the Child. But now (as you really seem 
in a damned scrape), they may do what they like with me, 
so that I can get you out of it : but, cheer up : though I 
have "led my ragamuffins where they are well ^peppered,' ''■' 
I will stick by them as long as they will keep the field. 

I write to you about all this row of bad passions and 
absurdities with the Summer Moon (for here our Winter 
[ 247 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

is clearer than your Dog days) lighting the winding Arno, 
with all her buildings and bridges, so quiet and still ! — 
What Nothings we are before the least of these Stars ! 



TO THOMAS MOORE 

Pisa, March 4, 1822. 

With respect to " Eeligion/^ can I never convince you 
that / have no such opinions as the characters in tliat 
drama,-^ which seems to have frightened everybody ? Yet 
they are nothing to the expressions in Goethe's Faust 
(which are ten times hardier), and not a whit more bold 
than those of Milton's Satan. My ideas of a character 
may run away with me : like all imaghiative men, I, of 
course, embody myself with the character while I draw 
it, hut not a moment after the pen is from off the paper. 

I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As 
a proof, I am educating my natural daughter a strict 
Catholic in a convent of Eomagna j for I think people 
can never have enottgh of religion, if they are to have 
any. I incline, myself, very much to the Catholic 
doctrines ; but if I am to write a drama, I must make my 
characters speak as I conceive them likely to argue. 

As to poor Shelley,^ who is another bugbear to you 
and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the least selfish 
and the mildest of men — a man who has made more 
sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for others than any 

1 "Cain." 

2 Moore had attributed the tone of " Cain " to Shelley's influence. 

[ MS ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

I ever heard of. With his speculative opinions I have 
nothing in common, nor desire to have. 

Tlie truth is, m}^ dear Moore, you live near the stove 
of society, wliere you are unavoidably influenced by its 
heat and its vapours. I did so once — and too much — 
and enough to give a colour to my whole future existence. 
As my success in society was not inconsiderable, I am 
surely not a prejudiced judge upon the subject, unless in 
its favour ; but I think it, as now constituted, /^^/^^ to all 
great original undertakings of every kind. I never courted 
it then, when I was young and high in blood, and one of 
its '' curled darlings '' ; and do you think I would do so 
nowy when I am living in a clearer atmosphere? One 
thing ouli/ might lead me back to it, and that is, to try 
once more if I could do any good in politics ; but not in 
the petty politics I see now preying upon our miserable 
country. 

Do not let me be misunderstood, however. If you 
speak your own opinions, they ever had, and will have, 
the greatest weight with me. But if you merely echo 
the monde (and it is difficult not to do so, being in its 
favour and its ferment), I can only regret that you should 
ever repeat anything to which I cannot pay attention. 

But I am prosing. The gods go with you, and as 
much immortality of all kinds as may suit your present 
and all other existence. 



[ 249 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

TO JOHN MURRAY 

Pisa, March 15tli, 1822. 

As to " a poom in the old way to interest the women/'' 
as yon call it, I shall attempt of that kind nothing further. 
I follow the bias of my own mind, without considering 
whether women or men are or are not to be pleased. 
But this is nothing to my publisher, who must judge and 
act according to popularity. 

Therefore let the things take their chance : if tJiei/ pay^ 
you will pay me in proportion ; and if they donH, I must. 

The Noel affairs, I hope, will not take me to England. 
I have no desire to revisit that country, unless it be to 
keep you out of a prison (if this can be effected by my 
taking your place), or perhaps to get myself into one, by 
exacting satisfaction from one or two persons who take 
advantage of my absence to abuse me. Further than 
this, I have no business nor connection with England, 
nor desire to have, out of my own family and friends, to 
whom I wish all prosperity. Indeed, I have lived upon 
the whole so little in England (about five years since I 
was one and twenty), that my habits are too continental, 
and your climate would please me as little as the Society. 

I saw the Chancellor's report^ in a Erench paper. 
Pray, why don't they prosecute the translation of Lucre- 
tius or the original, with its 

" Primus in orbe Deos fecit Timor, " 
or 

" Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum ? " 

^ Couceruing the prosecution for pubhcation of " Caiu." 

[ 250 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

I have only seen one review of the book^ and tliat 
was in Galignani^s magazine, quoted from the MontJily. 
It was very favourable to the plays, as Compositions. 

TO JOHN MUHEAY 

MoNTENERO, iicai* Lcglioru, May 26, 1822. 
Since I came here, I have been invited by the Ameri- 
cans on board of their Squadron, where I was received 
with all the kindness which I could wish, and with more 
ceremony than I am fond of. I found them finer ships 
than your own of the same class, well manned and officered. 
A number of American gentlemen also were on board at 
the time, and some ladies. As I was taking leave, an 
American lady asked me for a rose which I wore, for the 
purpose, she said, of sending to America something which 
I had about me, as a memorial. I need not add, that 
I felt the compliment properly. Captain Chauncey showed 
me an American and very pretty edition of my poems, and 
offered me a passage to the United States, if I would go 
there. Commodore Jones was also not less kind and 
attentive. I have since received the enclosed letter, desir- 
ing me to sit for my picture for some Americans.^ It is 

1 " Leghorn, 25t^ May, 1822. 
" Casa del Cousole Olandese, San Marco. 
" My Lord, — If Captain Chauncey of the U. S. Ship Ontario had not 
left Leghorn a day sooner than he expected, it was his intention to have 
communicated in person the substance of this note. 

" Lord Chatham, in the British Senate, and the Eulogist of Washing- 
ton, are solitary examples in English Literatui-e of those who have done 
justice to our character. My friend Mr. West of Mississippi, a student in 
the Academy at Florence, has been desired to request permission to paint a 

[ 251 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

singular that, in the same year that Lady Noel ^ leaves by 
will an interdiction for my daughter to see her father's 
portrait for many years, the individuals of a nation, not 
remarkable for their liking to the English in particular, 
nor for flattering men in general, request me to sit for my 
" pourtraicture,"*' as Baron Bradwardine calls it. I am 
also told of considerable literary honours in Germany. 
Goethe, I am told, is my professed patron and protector. 
At Leipsic, this year, the highest prize was proposed for 
a translation of two Cantos of Childe Harold. I am not 
sure that this was at Leipsic, but Mr. Bancroft ^ was my 
authority — a good German Scholar (a young American), 
and an acquaintance of Goethe's. 

Goethe and the Germans are particularly fond of Bon 
Juan, which they judge of as a work of Art. I had 
heard something like this before through Baron Lutzerode. 
The translations have been very frequent of several of the 

portrait of your Lordship for the Academy of Fine Arts at New York. I 
would not have ventured to intrude this request upon your Lordship's 
patience — if I did not know how much we should value in our own country 
a portrait of Lord Byron painted hy an American, who has already obtained 
at home some reputation in his art. I beg your Lordship to attribute 
whatever might appear rude or unreasonable in this note to anything other 
than to a want of the great respect with which 

" I have the honor to be 

"Your Lordship's Mo. Ob*. Serv*. 

" Geokge H. Buuen, 

of New York. 
"TotheRt. Hou^'e Lord Byron, Montenero." 

1 The maternal grandmother of Byron's daughter Ada. 

2 In the Lenox Library, New York, is a duodecimo edition of Bon 
Juan, with the inscription, "Mr. George Bancroft. From the Author 
Noel Byron, May 22, 1822." 

[ S52 ] 



T\7'ILLIAM E. WEST'S Portrait of Byron. 




THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

worksj and Goethe made a comparison between Faust and 
Man/red. 

All this is some compensation for your English native 
brutality, so fully displayed this year (I mean not your 
individually) to its brightest extent. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

MoNTENERo, ViLLA DuPUY, near Leghorn, June 8, 1822. 

I have read the recent article of Jeffrey in a faithful 
transcription of the impartial Galignani. I suppose the 
long and short of it is, that he wishes to provoke me to 
reply. But I won't, for I owe him a good turn still for 
his kindness by-gone. Indeed, I presume that the present 
opportunity of attacking me again was irresistible; and 
I can't blame him, knowing what human nature is. I shall 
make but one remark : — wdiat does he mean by elaborate ? ^ 
The whole volume was written with the greatest rapidity, 
in the midst of evolutions, and revolutions, and persecu- 
tions, and proscriptions of all who interested me in Italy. 
They said the same of Lara, which, yoif^ know, was written 
amidst balls and fooleries, and after coming home from 
masquerades and routs, in the summer of the sovereigns. 
Of all I have ever written, they are perhaps the most 
carelessly composed; and their faults, whatever they may 

1 In Jeffrey's review of "Cain," lie liad said "The whole argument — 
and a very elaborate and specious argument it is — is directed against the 
goodness or the power of the Deity, and against the reasonableness of religion 
in general ; and there is no answer so much as attempted to the offensive 
doctrines that arc so strenuously inculcated." 

[ 253 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

be, are those of negligence, and not of labour. I do not 
think this a merit, but it is a fact. 

Yours ever and truly, 

N. B. 

P. S. — You see the great advantage of my new signa- 
ture ; — it may either stand for " Nota Bene '^ or " Noel 
Byron,^^ and, as such, will save much repetition, in writing 
either books or letters. Since I came here, I have been 
invited on board of the American squadron, and treated 
with all possible honour and ceremony. They have asked 
me to sit for my picture ; and, as I was going away, an 
American lady took a rose from me (which had been given 
to me by a very pretty Italian lady that very morning), 
because, she said, " She was determined to send or take 
something which I had about me to America."*^ There 
is a kind of Lalla Rookh incident for you ! However, all 
these American honours arise, perhaps, not so much from 
their enthusiasm for my '' Poeshic '' as their belief in my 
dislike to the English, — in which I have the satisfaction 
to coincide with them. I would rather, however, have a 
nod from an American, than a simff'-box from an emperor.^ 

TO ISAAC DISEAELI 

MoNTENERO, ViLLA DupuY, 11? Leghorn, June 10, 1822. 

I really cannot know whether I am or am not the 
Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing 

1 Lady Holland had hcen left a snuff-box by Napoleon, which had been 
given to him by the Pope for his clemency in sparing Rome. 

[ 254 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

to put up with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title 
dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, 
even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can 
be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams 
to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can 
touch us no further. 

Mr. Murray is in possession of an MSS. Memoir of 
mine (not to be published till I am in my grave) which, 
strange as it may seem, I never read over since it was 
written and liave no desire to read over again. In it I 
have told what, as far as I know, is the truth — not the 
whole truth — for if I had done so I must have involved 
much private and some dissipated history ; but, neverthe- 
less, nothing but the truth, as far as regard for others 
permitted it to appear. 

I do not know whether you have seen those MSS. ; 
but as you are curious in such things as relate to the 
human mind, I should feel gratified if you had. 

I also sent him (Murray) a few days since, a common- 
place book, by my friend Lord Clare, containing a few 
things which may perhaps aid his publication in case of 
his surviving me. 

If there are any questions which you would like to ask 
me as connected Avith your Philosophy of the literary 
Mind {jf mine be a literary mind), I will answer them 
fairly or give a reason for not — good, bad, or indifferent. 
At present I am paying the penalty of having helped to 
spoil the public taste, for, as long as I wrote in the false 
exaggerated style of youth and the times in which we 
live, they applauded me to the very echo ; and within 
[ 255 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

these few years, when I have endeavoured at better 
things and written what I suspect to have the principle 
of duration in it, the Church, the Chancellor, and all 
men — even to my grand patron Francis Jeffrey Esq'f of 
the E. R. — have risen up against me and my later publi- 
cations. Such is Truth ! Men dare not look her in the 
face, except by degrees : they mistake her for a Gorgon, 
instead of knowing her to be a Minerva. 

I do not mean to apply this mythological simile to 
my own endeavours. I have only to turn over a few 
pages of your volumes to find innumerable and far more 
illustrious instances. 

It is lucky that I am of a temper not to be easily 
turned aside though by no means difficult to irritate. 
But I am making a dissertation instead of ^'riting a letter. 
I write to you from the Yilla Diipuy, near Leghorn, with 
the islands of Elba and Corsica visible from my balcony, 
and my old friend the Mediterranean rolling blue at my 
feet. As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for 
Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions 
and resist or endure those of others. 

I have the honour to be, truly, your obhged 

and faithful Ser^, 

Noel Byron. 

TO THOMAS MOORE 

Pisa, July 12, 1822. 

Leigh Hunt is here, after a voyage of eight months, 
during which he has, I presume, made the Periplus of 
[ %5Q ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Hanno the Carthaginian,^ and with much the same speed. 
He is setting up a Journal, to which I have promised to 
contribute ; and in the first number the Vision of Judg- 
ment, by Quevedo Eedivivus, will probably appear, with 
other articles. 

Can you give us anything ? He seems sanguine about 
the matter, but {entre nous) I am not. I do not, how- 
ever, like to put him out of spirits by saying so ; for he 
is bilious and unwell. Do, pray, answer this letter 
immediately. 

Do send Hunt anything in prose or verse of yours, 
to start him handsomely — any lyrical, iricdX, or what you 
please. 

TO JOHN MUERAY 

Pisa, August 3, 1822. 

I presume you have heard that Mr. Shelley and Capt. 
Williams were lost on the Tth^ ul*.° in their passage from 
Leghorn to Spczia in their own open boat. You may 
imagine the state of their families. I never saw such a 
scene, nor wish to see such another. 

You were all brutally mistaken about Shelley who 
was, without exception, the best and least selfish man I 

1 The irepitrKovs of Hanno tlie Carthaginian, originally written in the 
Punic language, and afterwards translated into Greek, was inscribed on a 
tablet in the Temple of Cronos at Carthage. Hanno was sent on a mission 
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, to found Libyphoenician towns. 

'^ Au error. This disaster occurred on the 8th of July. 

n [ 257 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

ever knew. I never knew one who was not a beast in 
comparison. 

TO THOMAS MOOEE 

Pisa, August 27, 1822. 

We have been burning the bodies of Shelley and 
Williams on tlie sea-shore, to render them fit for removal 
and regular interment. You can have no idea what an 
extraordinary effect such a funeral pile has, on a desolate 
shore, with mountains in the background and the sea 
before, and the singular appearance the salt and frankin- 
cense gave to the flame. All of Shelley was consumed 
except his heart, which would not take the flame, and is 
now preserved in spirits of wine. 

Leigh Hunt is sweating articles for his new Journal ; 
and both lie and I think it somewhat shabby in you not 
to contribute. Will you become one of the properriolers ? 
"Do, and we go snacks." I recommend you to think 
twice before you respond in the negative. 

I have nearly {/inite three) four new cantos of Bon 
Juan ready. I obtained permission from the female Cen- 
sor Mornni^ of my morals to continue it, provided it 
were immaculate; so I have been as decent as need be. 
There is a deal of war — a siege, and all that, in the style, 

1 Countess Guiccioli, who had exacted Byron's promise to write no 
more cantos of " Don Juan," on the completion of Canto V. 

[ 258 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

graphical and teclinical, of the shipwreck m Canto Second, 
which " took/' as they say in the E,ow. 

Yours, etc. 

P. S. — That . . . Galignani has about ten lies in one 
paragraph. It was not a Bible that was found in Shelley's 
pocket, but John Keats's poems. However, it would not 
have been strange, for he was a great admirer of Scripture 
as a composition. / did not send my bust to the academy 
of New York ; but I sat for my picture to young West,^ 
an American artist, at the request of some members of that 
Academy to 1dm that he would take my portrait, — for the 
Academy, I believe. 

I had, and still have, thoughts of South America, but 
am fluctuating between it and Greece. 



FROM "DON JUAN," CANTO I 
Wanted — A Hero 

I 
I WANT a hero : an uncommon want. 

When every year and month sends forth a new one. 
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant. 

The age discovers he is not the true one ; 

1 William Edward West (1788-1857) went to Italy in 1819 to study 
art. The artist wx-ote to his father after completing Byron's picture — 
" His friends say it is the only likeness ever taken of him, all the others 
being ideal heads." Several replicas are in existence. The original, Avitli 
the portrait of Countess Guiccioli made at the same time, is said to be 
owned by Mr. Joy of Hartham Park, Wilts. 

[ 259 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, 

I ■'11 therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan — 
We all have seen him, in the pantomime, 
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time. 

II 

Yernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, 

Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe, 

Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk. 

And fiird their sign posts then, like Wellesley now ; 

Each in their turn like Banquo^s monarchs stalk. 
Followers of fame, ^ nine farrow '' of that sow : 

Prance, too, had Buonaparte and Dumourier 

Eecorded in the Moniteur and Courier. 

Ill 

Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau, 

Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Payette, 

Were French, and famous people, as we know : 
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet, 

Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau, 
With many of the military set. 

Exceedingly remarkable at times. 

But not at all adapted to my rhymes. 

IV 

Nelson was once Britannia^s god of war. 

And still should be so, but the tide is tuniM ; 

There ^s no more to be said of Trafalgar, 
■'T is with our hero quietly inurnM j 
[ 260 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Because the army 's grown more popular. 

At which the naval people are concerned ; 
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service. 
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis. 



Brave men were living before Agamemnon 
And since, exceeding valorous and sage, 

A good deal like him too, though quite the same none ; 
But then they shone not on the poet's page. 

And so have been forgotten : — I condemn none. 
But can't find any in the present age 

Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one) ; 

So, as I said, I '11 take my friend Don Juan. 

YI 

Most epic poets plunge ' in medias res ' 

(Horace makes this the heroic turn-pike road), 

And then your liero tells, whene'er you please, 
What went before — by way of episode. 

While seated after dinner at his ease. 
Beside his mistress in some soft abode. 

Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern. 

Which serves the happy couple for a tavern. 

VII 

That is the usual method, but not mine — 
My way is to begin with the beginning ; 

The regularity of my design 

Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, 
[ 261 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And therefore I shall open with a line 

(Although it cost me half an hour in spinning) 
Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,, 
And also of his mother, if you ''d rather. 



Things Sweet 
CXXII 

'T is sweet to hear 

At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep 
The song and oar of Adrians gondolier, 

By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep ; 
^T is sweet to see the evening star appear ; 

'T is sweet to listen as the night-winds creep 
Erom leaf to leaf ; 't is sweet to view on high 
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. 

CXXIII 
■'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home ; 
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark 

Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; 
''T is sweet to be awaken'd by the lark. 

Or luird by falling waters ; sweet the hum 
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds. 
The lisp of children, and their earliest words. 

CXXIV 
Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes 

In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth. 
Purple and gushing : sweet are our escapes 

Prom civic revelry to rural mirth ; 
[ 262 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Sweet to the miser are his gUttering heaps, 

Sweet to the father is his first-born^s birth, 
Sweet is revenge — especially to women. 
Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen, 

cxxv 

Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet 

The unexpected death of some old lady 
Or gentleman of seventy years complete, 

Who \e made ^ us youth ^ wait too — too long already 
For an estate, or cash, or country seat. 

Still breaking, but with stamina so steady 
That all the Israelites are fit to mob its 
Next owner for their double-damnM post-obits. 

CXXVI 

^T is sweet to win, no matter how, one^s laurels, 
By blood or ink ; ^t is sweet to put an end 

To strife ; 't is sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, 
Particularly with a tiresome friend : 

Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in barrels ; 
Dear is the helpless creature we defend 

Against the world ; and dear the schoolboy spot 

We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. 

CXXVII 

But sweeter still than this, than these, than all. 
Is first and passionate love — it stands alone, 
Like Adam's recollection of his fall ; 

The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd — all 's 
known — 

[ 263 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And life yields nothing further to recall 

"Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown. 
No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven 
Pire which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven. 



FEOM "DON JUAN/* CANTO 11 

The Shipwreck 
• »•••• 

XLIX 

^ WAS twilight, and the sunless day went down 
Over the waste of waters ; like a veil. 

Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown 
Of one whose hate is maskM but to assail, 

Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown. 
And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale. 

And the dim desolate deep : twelve days Jiad Pear 

Been their familiar, and now Death was here. 

L 

Some trial had been making at a raft, 
"With little hope in such a rolling sea, 

A sort of thing at which one would have laughM, 
If any laughter at such times could be. 

Unless with people who too much have quaif'd. 
And have a kind of wild and horrid glee. 

Half epileptical and half hysterical : — 

Their preservation would have been a miracle. 
[ 264 ] 



^ a S 

? i ■* 




id 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

LI 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, 
And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose. 

That still could keep afloat the straggling tars. 
For yet they strove, although of no great use : 

There was no light in heaven but a few stars, 
The boats put off overcrowded with their crews ; 

She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port. 

And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short. 

LII 

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell — 
Then shriekM the timid, and stood still the brave. 

Then some leapM overboard with dreadful yell. 
As eager to anticipate their grave ; 

And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell. 

And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave. 

Like one w^ho grapples witli his enemy. 

And strives to strangle him before he die. 

LIII 

And first one universal shriek there rush'd. 
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 

Of echoing thunder ; and then all was hush'd. 
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 

Of billows ; but at intervals there gushM, 
Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 

A sohtary shriek, the bubbling cry 

Of some strong swimmer in his agony. 
[ 265 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

LIV 
The boats, as stated, had got off before, 

And ill them crowded several of the crew ; 
And yet their present hope was hardly more 

Than what it had been, for so strong it blew 
There was slight chance of reacliing any shore ; 

And then they were too many, though so few 
Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat. 
Were counted in them when they got afloat. 



LX 

'T was a rough night, and blew so stiffly yet. 
That the sail was becalm^ between the seas, 

Though on the wavers high top too much to set, 
They dared not take it in for all the breeze : 

Each sea curFd o'er the stern, and kept them w^t, 
And made them bale without a moment's ease. 

So that themselves as well as hopes were damp'd. 

And the poor little cutter quickly swamp'd. 

LXI 

Nine souls more went in her : the long-boat still 
Kept above water, with an oar for mast. 

Two blankets stitch'd together, answering ill 
Instead of sail, were to the oar made fast : 

Though every wave rolFd menacing to fill, 
And present peril all before surpassed. 

They grieved for those who perish'd with the cutter. 

And also for the biscuit-casks and butter. 
[ 266 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

LXII 

The sun rose red and fiery, a sure sign 

Of the continuance of the gale : to run 
Before the sea until it should grow fine, 

Was all that for the present could be done : 
A few tea-spoonfuls of their rum and wine 

Were served out to the people, who begun 
To faint, and damaged bread wet through the bags. 
And most of them had little clothes but rags. 

LXIII 
They counted thirty, crowded in a space 

Which left scarce room for motion or exertion ; 
They did their best to modify their case, 

One half sate up, though numbed with the immersion, 
While toother half were laid down in their place 

At watch and watch ; thus, shivering like the tertian 
Ague in its cold fit, they fiird their boat, 
With nothing but the sky for a great coat. 

CII 

Pamine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done 
Their work on them by turns, and thimiM them to 

Such things a mother had not known her son 
Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew ; 

By night chilFd, by day scorchM, thus one by one 
They perish'd, until wither^ to these few, 

But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter. 

In washing down Pcdrillo with salt water. 
[ 267 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

cm 

As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen 
Unequal in its aspect here and there^ 

They felt the freshness of its growing green, 

That waved in forest-tops, and smoothed the air, 

And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen 

From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare 

Lovely seemM any object that should sweep 

Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep. 

CIV 

The shore lookM wild, without a trace of man, 
And girt by formidable waves ; but they 

Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran. 
Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay : 

A reef between them also now began 

To show its boiling surf and bounding spray, 

But finding no place for their landing better, 

They ran the boat for shore, — and overset her. 

CV 

But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir, 
Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont; 

And having learnt to swim in that sweet river, 
Had often turned the art to some account : 

A better swimmer you could scarce see ever. 
He could, perhaps, have passM the Hellespont, 

As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) 

Leander, Mr. Ekenbead, and I did. 
[ 268 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

CVI 

So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark, 
He buoyM his boyish limbs, and strove to ply 

With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark. 
The beach which lay before him, high and dry : 

The greatest danger here was from a shark. 
That carried off his neighbour by the thigh; 

As for the other two, they could not swim, 

So nobody arrived on shore but him. 

CVII 

Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar. 
Which, providentially for him, was wasVd 

Just as his feeble arms could strike no more. 

And the hard wave o^erwhelmM him as 't was dashed 

Within his grasp ; he clung to it, and sore 
The waters beat while he tliereto was lashM ; 

At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he 

EolFd on the beach, half-senseless, from the sea : 

CVTII 

There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung 
Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave. 

From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, 
Should suck him back to her insatiate grave : 

And there he lay, full length, where he was flung. 
Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave. 

With just enough of life to feel its pain. 

And deem that it was saved, perhaps, in vain. 
[ 269 ] 



WITH BYRON IiN ITALY 

CIX 

With slow and staggering effort he arose, 
But sunk again upon his bleeding knee 

And quivering hand ; and then he looked for those 
Who. long had been his mates upon the sea ; 

But none of them appearM to share his woes, 
Save one, a corpse, from out the famisliM three, 

Who died two days before, and now had found 

An unknown barren beach for burial ground. 

CX 

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast, 
And down he sunk ; and as he sunk, the sand 

Swam round and round, and all his senses passM : 
He fell upon his side, and his stretch'd hand 

DroopM dripping on the oar (their jury-mast). 
And, like a witherM lily, on the land 

His slender frame and pallid aspect lay, 

As fair a thing as e'er was formM of clay. 

CXI 

How long in his damp trance young Juan lay 
He knew not, for the earth was gone for him, 

And Time had nothing more of night nor day 
For his congealing blood, and senses dim ; 

xVnd how this heavy faintness pass'd away 

He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb. 

And tingling vein, seem'd throbbing back to life. 

Tor Death, though vanquish'd, still retired with strife. 
[ 270 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

CXII 

His eyes lie open'd, shut, again unclosed. 
For all was doubt and dizziness ; he thought 

lie still was in the boat and had but dozed, 
And felt again with his despair o'er wrought. 

And wish'd it death in which he had reposed; 

And then once more his feelings back were brought, 

And slowly by his swimming eyes was seen 

A lovely female face of seventeen. 

CXIII 

'T was bending close o'er his, and the small mouth 
Seem'd almost prying into his for breath ; 

And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth 
Ptecall'd his answering spirits back from death; 

And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe 
Each pulse to animation, till beneath 

Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh 

To these kind efforts made a low reply. 

CXIV 

Then was the cordial pour'd, and mantle flung 
Around his scarce-clad limbs ; and the fair arm 

Raised higher the faint head which o'er it hung ; 
And her transparent cheek, all pure and warm, 

Pillow'd his death-like forehead ; then she wrung 
His dewy curls, long drench'd by every storm ; 

And watch'd with eagerness each throb that drew 

A sigh from his heaved bosom — and hers, too. 
[ 271 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

CXV 

And lifting him with care into the cave, 
The gentle girl and her attendant, — one 

Young, yet her elder, and of brow less grave. 
And more robust of figure, — then begun 

To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave 

Light to the rocks that roof d them, which the sun 

Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe'er 

She was, appeared distinct, and tall, and fair. 

CXVI 

Her brow was overhung with coins of gold. 
That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair — 

Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolPd 
In braids behind ; and though her stature were 

Even of the highest for a female mould. 

They nearly reached her heel ; and in her air 

There was a something which bespoke command. 

As one who was a lady in the land. 

CXVII 

Her hair, I said, was auburn ; but her eyes 
Were black as death, their lashes the same hue. 

Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies 
Deepest attraction ; for when to the view 

Eorth from its raven fringe the full glance flies, 
Ne^'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew ; 

^T is as the snake late coilM, who pours his length, 

And liurls at once his venom and his strength, 
[ 272 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

CXVIII 

Her brow was white and low^ her cheek's pure dye 
Like twilight rosy still with the set sun ; 

Short upper lip — sweet lips ! that make us sigh 
Ever to have seen such ; for she was one 

Fit for the model of a statuary 

(A race of mere impostors, when all 's done - 

I Ve seen much finer women, ripe and real, 

Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal). 

CXIX 

I '11 tell you why I say so, for 't is just 

One should not rail without a decent cause : 

There was an Irish lady, to whose bust 
I ne'er saw justice done, and yet she was 

A frequent model ; and if e'er she must 

Yield to stern Time and Nature's wrinkling laws. 

They will destroy a face which mortal thought 

Ne'er compass'd, nor less mortal chisel wrought. 

cxx 

And such was she, the lady of the cave : 

Her dress was very different from the Spanish, 

Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave ; 

For, as you know, the Spanish women banish 

Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while wave 
Around them (what I hope will never vanish) 

The basquina and the mantilla, they 

Seem at the same time mystical and gay. 
18 [ 273 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

CXXI 

But with our damsel this was not the case : 
Her dress was many-colourM, finely spun ; 

Her locks curFd negligently round her face, 

But through them gold and gems profusely shone : 

Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace 

Plowed in her veil, and many a precious stone 

Plash'd on her little hand ; but, what was shocking,, 

Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stocking. 

CXXH 

The other female's dress was not unlike. 

But of inferior materials : she 
Had not so many ornaments to strike. 

Her hair had silver only, bound to be 
Her dowry ; and her veil, in form alike. 

Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less free ; 
Her hair was thicker, but less long ; her eyes 
As black, but quicker, and of smaller size. 

cxxni 

And these two tended him, and cheerM him both 
With food and raiment, and those soft attentions. 

Which are (as I must own) of female growth. 
And have ten thousand delicate inventions : 

They made a most superior mess of broth, 
A thing which poesy but seldom mentions. 

But the best dish that e'er was cook'd since Homer's 

Achilles ordered dinner for new comers. 
[ S74 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

CXXIV 

I '11 tell you who they were^ this female pair, 
Lest they should seem princesses in disguise ; 

Besides^, I hate all mystery^ and that air 
Of clap-trap which your recent poets prize ; 

And so, in short, the girls they really were 
They shall appear before your curious eyes. 

Mistress and maid ; the first was only daughter 

Of an old man who lived upon the water. 

CXXV 

A fisherman he had been in his youth, 
And still a sort of fisherman was he ; 

But other speculations were, in sooth, 
Added to his connection with the sea, 

Perhaps not so respectable, in truth : 
A little smuggling, and some piracy. 

Left him, at last, the sole of many masters 

Of an ill-gotten million of piastres. 

CXXVI 

A fisher, therefore, was he, — though of men. 
Like Peter the Apostle, — and he fished 

For wandering merchant-vessels, now and then. 
And sometimes caught as many as he wishM ; 

The cargoes he confiscated, and gain 

He sought in the slave-market too, and dish'd 

Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade. 

By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made. 
[ 275 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

CXXVII 

He was a Greek, and on his isle had built 
(One of the wild and smaller Cyclades) 

A very handsome house from out his guilt. 
And there he lived exceedingly at ease ; 

Heaven knows what cash he got or blood he spilt, 
A sad old fellow was he, if you please ; 

But this I know, it was a spacious building, 

Pull of barbaric carving, paint, and gilding. 

CXXVIII 

He had an only daughter, calFd Haidee, 
The greatest heiress of the Eastern Isles ; 

Besides, so very beautiful was she, 

Her dowry was as nothing to her smiles : 

Still in her teens, and like a lovely tree 

She grew to womanhood, and between whiles 

Eejected several suitors, just to learn 

How to accept a better in his turn. 

CXXIX 

And walking out upon the beach, below 

The cliff, towards sunset, on that day she found, 

Insensible, — not dead, but nearly so, — 

Don Juan, almost famishM, and half drown'd; 

But being naked, she was shocFd, you know. 
Yet deemed herself in common pity bound. 

As far as in her lay, " to take him in, 

A stranger " dying, with so white a skin. 
[ 276 ] 



§ ^ '^ 



B^ ^ S" >^ 



^ V «c 







w 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

CXXX 

But taking him into her father's house 

Was not exactly the best way to save, 
But like conveying to the cat the mouse, 

Or people in a trance into their grave ; 
Because the good old man had so much '' vov<;" 

Unlike the honest Arab thieves so brave, 
He would have hospitably cured the stranger. 
And sold him instantly when out of danger. 

CXXXI 

And therefore, with her maid, she thought it best 

(A virgin always on her maid relies) 
To place him in the cave for present rest : 

And when, at last, he openM his black eyes. 
Their charity increased about their guest; 

And their compassion grew to such a size. 
It openM half the turnpike-gates to heaven 
(St. Paul says, 'tis the toll which must be given). 

cxxxn 

They made a fire, — but such a fire as they 
Upon the moment could contrive with such 

Materials as were cast up round the bay, — 

Some broken planks, and oars, that to the touch 

Were nearly tinder, since so long they lay 
A mast was almost crumbled to a crutch ; 

But, by God's grace, here wrecks were in such plenty. 

That there was fuel to have furnished twenty. 
[ 277 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

CXXXIII 

He had a bed of furs^ and a pelisse, 

For Haidee stripped her sables off to make 

His couch ; and, that he might be more at ease, 
And warm, in case bj chance he should awake, 

They also gave a petticoat apiece, 

She and her maid — and promised by daybreak 

To pay him a fresh visit, with a dish 

Por breakfast, of eggs, coffee, bread, and fish. 

CXXXIV 

And thus they left him to his lone repose : 

Juan slept like a top, or like the dead, 
Who sleep at last, perhaps (God only knows). 

Just for the present ; and in his lulFd head 
Not even a vision of his former woes 

Throbb'd in accursed dreams, which sometimes spread 
Unwelcome visions of our former years. 
Till the eye, cheated, opens thick with tears. 

cxxxv 

Young Juan slept all dreamless : — but the maid. 
Who smooth''d his pillow, as she left the den 

LooVd back upon him, and a moment stay'd, 
And turn'd, believing that he call'd again. 

He slumber'd ; yet she thought, at least she said 
(The heart will slip, even as the tongue and pen), 

He had pronounced her name — but she forgot 

That at this moment Juan knew it not. 

[ S78 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

FEOM ^^DON JUAN/' CANTO III 
The Poet 



LXXVIII 

And now they were diverted by their suite, 

Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet. 

Which made their new establishment complete ; 
The last was of great fame, and liked to show it : 

His verses rarely wanted their due feet ; 

And for his theme — he seldom sung below it, 

He being paid to satirize or flatter. 

As the psalm says, " inditing a good matter/' 

LXXIX 

He praised the present, and abused the past, 
Eeversing the good custom of old days, 

An Eastern anti-jacobin at last 

He turned, preferring pudding to no praise — 

For some few years his lot had been o'ercast 
By his seeming independent in his lays, 

But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha 

With truth like Southey, and with verse like Crashaw. 

LXXX 

He was a man who had seen many changes. 
And always clianged as true as any needle ; 

His polar star being one which rather ranges, 

And not the fix'd — he knew the way to wheedle : 
[ 279 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges ; 
And being fluent (save indeed when feeM ill), 
He lied with such a fervour of intention — 
There was no doubt he earned his laureate pension. 

LXXXI 
But he had genius, — when a turncoat has it. 

The " Yates irritabilis '' takes care 
That without notice few full moons shall pass it ; 

Even good men like to make the public stare : — 
But to my subject — let me see — what was it ? — 

Oh ! — the third canto — and the pretty pair — 
Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode 
Of living in their insular abode. 

LXXXII 

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less 
• In company a very pleasant fellow. 
Had been the favourite of full many a mess 

Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow ; 
And though his meaning they could rarely guess, 

Yet still they deignM to hiccup or to bellow 
The glorious meed of popular applause. 
Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause. 

LXXXIII 

But now being lifted into high society. 

And having pickM up several odds and ends 

Of free thoughts in his travels for variety. 

He deemed, being in a lone isle, among friends, 
[ 280 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

That, without any danger of a riot, he 

Might for long lying make himself amends ; 
And, singing as he sung in his warm youth. 
Agree to a short armistice with truth. 

LXXXIV 
He had travelFd ^mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks, 

And knew the self-loves of the different nations ; 
And having Kved with people of all ranks. 

Had something ready upon most occasions — 
Which got him a few presents and some thanks. 

He varied with some skill his adulations ; 
To " do at Eome as Romans do," a piece 
Of conduct was which he observed in Greece. 

LXXXV 
Thus, usually, when he was asFd to sing, 

He gave the different nations something national ; 
^Twas all the same to him — " God save the kins;," 

Or " Qa ira,'' according to the fashion all : 
His muse made increment of any thing, 

From the high lyric down to the low rational : 
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder 
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar ? 

LXXXVI 

In Prance, for instance, he would write a chanson ; 

In England a six canto quarto tale ; 
In Spain, he M make a ballad or romance on 

The last war — much the same in Portugal ; 
[ 281 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

In Germany, the Pegasus he ''d prance on 

Would be old Goethe's (see what says De Stael) ; 
In Italy he 'd ape the " Trecentisti " ; 
In Greece, he 'd sing some sort of liymn like this t' ye 

1 

The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece ! 

Where burning Sappho loved and sung, 
Where grew the arts of war and peace, 

Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung ! 
Eternal summer gilds them yet. 
But aU, except their sun, is set. 



The Scian and the Teian muse, 
The hero's harp, the lover's lute, 

Have found the fame your shores refuse ; 
Their place of birth alone is mute 

To sounds vrhich echo further west 

Than your sires' " Islands of the Blest." 

3 

The mountains look on Marathon — 
And Marathon looks on the sea ; 

And musing there an hour alone, 

I dream'd that Greece might still be free ; 

Tor standing on the Persians' grave, 

I could not deem myself a slave. 

A king sate on the rocky brow 

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ; 

And ships, by thousands, lay below, 
And men in nations ; — all were his ! 

He counted them at break of day — 

And when the sun set where were they .'' 
[ 282 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

5 

And where are they ? and where art tliou, 
My country ? On thy voiceless shore 

The heroic lay is tuneless now — 
The heroic bosom beats no more ! 

And must thy lyre, so long divine, 

Degenerate into hands like mine ? 

6 

'T is something, in the dearth of fame, 
Though Hnk'd among a fetter'd race, 

To feel at least a patriot's shame, 
Even as I sing, suffuse my face ; 

For what is left the poet here ? 

For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear. 

7 
Must we but weep o'er days more blest ? 

Must we but blush ? — Our fathers bled. 
Earth ! render back from out thy breast 

A remnant of our Spartan dead ! 
Of the three hundred grant but three, 
To make a new Thermopylae ! 

8 
What, silent still? and silent all ? 

Ah ! no ; — the voices of the dead 
Sound like a distant torrent's fall, 

And answer, " Let one living head. 
But one arise, — we come, we come ! '* 
'T is but the living who are dumb. 



In vain — in vain : strike other chords , 
Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! 

Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, 
And shed the blood of Scio's vine ! 
[ 283 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Hark ! rising to the ignoble call — 
How answers each bold Bacchanal ! 

10 
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, 

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone ? 
Of two such lessons, why forget 

The nobler and the manlier one ? 
You have the letters Cadmus gave — 
Think ye he meant them for a slave ? 

11 

Pill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

We will not think of themes like these ! 
It made Anacreon's song divine : 

He served — but served Polycrates — 
A tyrant ; but our masters then 
Were still, at least, our countrymen. 

12 
The tyrant of the Chersonese 

Was freedom's best and bravest friend ; 
That tyrant was Miltiades I 

Oh ! that the present hour would leud 
Another despot of the kind ! 
Such chains as his were sure to bind. 

13 
Pill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore, 
Exists the remnant of a line 

Such as the Doric mothers bore ; 
Aud there, perhaps, some seed is sown, 
The Heracleidan blood might own. 

14 
Trust not for freedom to the Pranks — 

They have a king who buys and sells : 
In native swords, and native ranks. 
The only hope of courage dwells ; 
[ 284 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, 
Would break your shield, however broad. 

15 
Eill high the bowl with Samian wine ! 

Our virgins dance beneath the shade — 
I see their glorious black eyes shine ; 

But gazing on each glowing maid. 
My own the burning tear-drop laves 
To think such breasts must suckle slaves. 

16 
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, 

Where nothing, save the waves and I, 
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep ; 

There, swan-like, let me sing and die: 
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — 
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine ! 

LXXXVII 
Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, 

The modern Greek, in tolerable verse ; 
If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, 

Yet in these times he might have done much worse : 
Ilis strain displayed some feeling — right or wrong ; 

And feeling, in a poet, is the source 
Of others' feeling ; but they are such liars, 
And take all colours — like the hands of dyers. 

LXXXVIII 

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, 
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces 

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think ; 
'T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses 
[ 285 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Instead of speech, may form a lasting link 

Of ages ; to what straits old Time reduces 
Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this, 
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that ^s his. 



XCVI 
But let me to my story : I must own. 

If I have any fault, it is digression — 
Leaving my people to proceed alone. 

While I soliloquize beyond expression; 
But these are my addresses from the throne. 

Which put off business to the ensuing session : 
Forgetting each omission is a loss to 
The world, not quite so great as Ariosto. 

XCYII 
I know that what our neighbors call " longueurs'^' 

(We \e not so good a word, but have the thing 
In that complete perfection which ensures 

An epic from Bob Southey every spring). 
Form not the true temptation which allures 

The reader ; but "t would not be hard to bring 
Some fine examples of the epopee^ 
To prove its grand ingredient is ennui, 

XCVIII 
We learn from Horace, " Homer sometimes sleeps " ; 

We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes,- 
To show with what complacency he creeps, 

With his dear " Waggoners,'"* around his lakes. 
[ S86 ] 



^7'ILLA Borghese, Rome. 




"^ land 
Which was the mir/htiest in its old command. 
And is the loveliest, and must ever he 
The master-mould of Nature''s heavenly hand. 
Wherein wei'e cast the heroic and the free. 
The beautiful, the brave — the lords of earth and sea. " 

— Childe Harold, Canto IV, stanza xxv. 



p. G5. 



THE YExVRS 1822 AND 1823 

He wishes for " a boat '^ to sail the deeps — 

Of ocean ? — No, of air ; and then he makes 
Another outcry for ^' a little boat/^ 
And drivels seas to set it well afloat. 

XCIX 
If he must fain sweep o'er the ethereal plain. 

And Pegasus runs restive in liis " Waggon/' 
Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain ? 

Or pray Medea for a single dragon ? 
Or if, too classic for his vulgar brain. 

He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, 
And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, 
Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon ? 

C 

" Pedlars/' and " Boats/' and '' Waggons 1 " 
Oh ! ye shades 

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this ? 
That trash of such sort not alone evades 

Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss 
Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades 

Of sense and song above your graves may hiss - 
The " little boatman " and his '' Peter Bell " 
Can sneer at him who drew " Achitophel " 1 

CI 

T' our tale. — The feast was over, the slaves gone. 
The dwarfs and dancing girls had aU retired ; 

The Arab lore and poet's song Avere done, 
And every sound of revelry expired ; 
[ 287 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

The lady and her lover, left alone, 

The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired ; — 
Ave Maria ! o'er the earth and sea, 
That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee ! 

The Twilight Hour 
CH 
Ave Maria ! blessed be the hour ! 

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft 
Have felt that moment in its fullest power 

Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft. 
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower 

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, 
And not a breath crept through the rosy air. 
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. 

cm 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of prayer ! 

Ave Maria ! 't is the hour of love ! 
Ave Maria ! may our spirits dare 

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above ! 
Ave Maria ! oh that face so fair ! 

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove 
What though 't is but a pictured image ? — strike - 
That painting is no idol, — 't is too like. 

CIV 
Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, 

In nameless print — that I have no devotion; 
But set those persons down with me to pray, 
And you shall see who has the properest notion 
[ 288 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Of getting into heaven the shortest way ; 

My altars are the mountains and the ocean. 
Earth, air, stars, — all that springs from the great Whole, 
Who hath produced, and will receive the soul. 

CV 

Sweet hour of twilight ! — in the solitude 

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore 
Which bounds E^venua's immemorial wood, 

Eooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er. 
To where the last Csesarean fortress stood. 

Evergreen forest ! which Boccaccio's lore 
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me. 
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee ! 

CVI 
The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, 

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song. 
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine. 

And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along ; 
The spectre huntsman of Onesti's Hue, 

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng 
Which learn'd from this example not to fly 
From a true lover, — shadow'd my mind's eye. 

CVII 

Oh, Hesperus ! thou bringest all good things — 

Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer. 
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings. 

The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer ; 
19 [ 289 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Whatever of peace about our hearthstone clings. 
Whatever our household gods protect of dear. 
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest ; 
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast. 

CYIII 
Soft hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the heart 

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart ; 

Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way 
As the far bell of vesper makes him start, 

Seeming to weep the dying day's decay ; 
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns ? 
Ah ! surely nothing dies but something mourns ! 

CIX 

"When Nero perish'd by the justest doom 
Which ever the destroyer yet destroyed. 

Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, 

Of nations freed, and the world overjoyed, 

Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb : 
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void 

Of feeling for some kindness done, when power 

Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour. 



[ 290 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

FROM ''DON JUAN/^ CANTO IV 

Haidee and Juan 
I 

Nothing so difficult as a beginning 

In poesy, unless perhaps the end ; 
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning 

The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend. 
Like Lucifer when hurFd from heaven for sinning ; 

Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend. 
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far. 
Till our own weakness shows us what we are. 

II 

But Time, which brings all beings to their level. 
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last 

Man, — • and, as we would hope, — perhaps the devil, 
Tliat neither of their intellects are vast : 

While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel. 
We know not this — the blood flows on too fast ; 

But as the torrent widens towards the ocean, 

We ponder deeply on each past emotion. 

Ill 
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow. 

And wish'd that others held the same opinion ; 
They took it up when ray days grew more mellow. 

And other minds acknowledged my dominion : 
Now my sere fancy " falls into tlie yellow 
Leaf,'' and Imagination droops her pinion, 
[ 291 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

And the sad truth which hovers o^cr my desk 
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. 

IV 

And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 

■'T is that I may not weep ; and if I weep, 

^T is that our nature cannot always bring 
Itself to apathy, for we must steep 

Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring, 
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep : 

Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx ; 

A mortal mother would on Lethe fix. 

V 

Some have accused me of a strange design 
Against the creed and morals of the land. 

And trace it in this poem every line : 
I don't pretend that I quite understand 

My own meaning when I would be very fine ; 
But the fact is that I have nothing planned. 

Unless it were to be a moment merry, 

A novel word in my vocabulary. 

VI 

To the kind reader of our sober clime 

This way of writing will appear exotic ; 
Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme. 

Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic, 
And revelPd in the fancies of the time, 

True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings des- 
potic ; 

[ 292 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

But all these, save the last, being obsolete, 
I cliose a modern subject as more meet. 

VII 
How I have treated it, I do not know ; 

Perhaps no better than thej have treated me 
Who have imputed such designs as show 

Not what tliey saw, but what they wished to see :' 
But if it gives them pleasure, be it so ; 

This is a liberal age, and thoughts are free : 
Meantime Apollo plucks me by the ear. 
And tells me to resume my story here. 

VIII 
Young Juan and his lady-love were left 

To their own hearts' most sweet society ; 
Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft 

With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms ; he 
Sigh'd to behold them of their hours bereft. 

Though foe to love ; and yet they could not be 
Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, 
Before one charm or hope had taken wing. 

IX 

Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their 

Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail ; 

The blank grey was not made to blast their hair, 
But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail 

They were all summer ; lightning might assail 
And shiver them to ashes, but to trail 

A long and snake-like life of dull decay 

Was not for them — they had too little clay. 
[ 293 ] 



WITH BYROxV IN ITALY 



They were alone once more ; for them to be 
Thus was another Eden ; they were never 

Weary^ unless when separate : the tree 

Cut from its forest root of years — the river 

DammM from its fountain — the child from the knee 
And breast maternal weaned at once for ever, — 

Would wither less than these two torn apart ; 

Alas ! there is no instinct like the heart — 

XI 

The heart — which may be broken : happy they 
Thrice fortunate ! who of that fragile mould, 

The precious porcelain of human clay, 

Break with the first fall : they can ne^T behold 

The long year linked with heavy day on day, 
And all which must be borne, and never told ; 

While lifers strange principle will often lie 

Deepest in those who long tlie most to die. 

XII 

" Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore, 
And many deaths do they escape by this : 

The death of friends, and that which slays even more 
The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is. 

Except mere breath ; and since the silent shore 
Awaits at last even those who longest miss 

The old archer's shafts, perhaps the early grave 

Which men v^-eep over may be meant to save. 
[ 294 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

XIII 

Haidee and Juan thought not of the dead — 

The heavens, and earth, and air, seem'd made for them : 

The J found no fault with Time, save that he fled ; 
They saw not in themselves aught to condemn : 

Each was the other^s mirror, and but read 
Joy sparkling in their dark eyes like a gem, 

And knew such brightness was but the reflection 

Of their exchanging glances of affection. 

XIY 

The gentle pressure, and the thrilling touch. 
The least glance better understood than words. 

Which still said all, and ne''er could say too much ; 
A language, too, but like to that of birds. 

Known but to them, at least appearing such 
As but to lovers a true sense affords ; 

Sweet playful phrases, which would seem absurd 

To those who have ceased to hear such, or ne^er heard, — 

XV 

All these were theirs, for they were children still, 
x\nd children still they should have ever been ; 

They were not made in the real world to fill 
A busy character in the dull scene. 

But like two beings born from out a rill, 
A nymph and her beloved, all unseen 

To pass their lives in fountains and on flowers, 

And never know the weight of human hours. 
[ 295 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XVI 

Moons changing had rolPd on, and changeless found 
Those their bright rise had lighted to such joys 

As rarely they beheld throughout their round ; 
And these were not of the vain kind which cloys, 

Por theirs were buoyant spirits, never bound 
By the mere senses ; and that which destroys 

Most love, possession, unto them appeared 

A thing which each endearment more endeared. 

• ••••• 

XIX 

This is in others a factitious state. 

An opium dream of too much youth and reading. 
But was in them their nature or their fate : 

No novels e'er had set their young hearts bleeding, 
Por Haidee's knowledge was by no means great. 

And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding ; 
So that there was no reason for their loves. 
More than those of nightingales or doves. 



PEOM "DON JUAN,'' CANTO XI 
Byron and His Contemporaries 

LY 

In twice five years the " greatest living poet," 
Like to the champion in the fisty ring, 

Is call'd on to support his claim, or show it. 
Although 't is an imaginary thing. 
[ 296 ] 




- o 



2= o 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Even I — albeit I ^m sure I did not know it_, 

Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king — 
Was reckonM a considerable time. 
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme. 

LVI 
But Juan was my Moscow,, and Faliero 

My Leipsic, and my Mount Saint Jean seems Cain 
" La Belle Alliance " of dunces down at zero, 

Now that the Lion ^s falFn, may rise again : 
But I will fall at least as fell my hero ; 

Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign ; 
Or to some lonely isle of gaolers go, 
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe. 

LVII 
Sir Walter reign'd before me ; Moore and Campbell 

Before and after ; but now grown more holy, 
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble 

With poets almost clergymen, or wholly; 
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble 

Beneath the very Eeverend Eowley Powley, 
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts, 
A modern Ancient Pistol — by the hilts 1 

LVril 

Then there ^s my gentle Euphues, who, they say, 
Sets up for being a sort of moral me ; 

He '11 find it rather difficult some day 
To turn out both, or either, it may be. 
[ 297 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; 
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three ; 
And that deep-mouth\l Boeotian " Savage Landor '* 
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey^s gander. 

LIX 
John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique. 

Just as he really promised something great. 
If not intelligible, without Greek 

Contrived to talk about the gods of late. 
Much as they might have been supposed to speak. 

Poor fellow ! His was an untoward fate ; 
^T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle. 
Should let itself be snufFM out by an article. 

LX 

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders 
To that which none will gain — or none will know 

The conqueror at least ; who, ere Time renders 
His last award, will have the long grass grow 

Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders. 
If I might augur, I should rate but low 

Their chances ; they ''re too numerous, like the thirty 

Mock tyrants, when Eome^s annals wax'd but dirty. 

LXI 

This is the literary lower empire, 

Where the prsetorian bands take up the matter ; — 
A ^' dreadful trade,^' like his who " gathers samphire/ 

The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter, 
[ ^98 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

With tlie same feelings as you 'd coax a vampire. 
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire, 
I 'd try conclusions with those Janizaries, 
And show them w/iat an intellectual war is. 

LXII 

I think I know a trick or two, would turn 

Their flanks ; — bnt it is hardly worth my while 

With such small gear to give myself concern : 
Indeed I ^^e not the necessary bile ; 

My natural temper ^s really aught but stern, 
And even my Muse^s worst reproof ^s a smile ; 

And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy. 

And glides away, assured she never hurts ye. 



FEOM "DON JUAN,^' CANTO XIV 

Don Juan Described 
• ••••• 

XXIX 

We left our heroes and our heroines 

In that fair clime which don't depend on climate. 
Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs. 

Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at. 
Because the sun, and stars, and aught that shines. 

Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at. 
Are there oft dull and dreary as a d?.m — 
Whether a sky's or tradesman's is all one. 
[ 299 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

XXX 

An in-door life is less poetical ; 

And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet, 
With which I could not brew a pastoral. 

But be it as it may, a bard must meet 
All difficulties, whether great or small, 

To spoil his undertaking or complete. 
And work away like spirit upon matter. 
Embarrassed somewhat both with fire and water. 

XXXI 

Juan — in this respect, at least, like saints — 
Was all things unto people of all sorts, 

And lived contentedly, without complaints, 
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts — 

Born with that happy soul which seldom faints. 
And mingling modestly in toils or sports. 

He likewise could be most things to all women. 

Without the coxcombry of certain she men. 

XXXII 

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange ; 

'T is also subject to the double danger 
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange 

Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger : 
But Juan had been early taught to range 

The wilds, as doth an Arab turnM avenger. 
So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack. 
Knew that he had a rider on his back. 
[ 300 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

XXXIII 

And now in tliis new field, with some applause, 
He cleared hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail, 

And never craned^ and made but few ^^ faux pas,'* 
And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail. 

lie broke, 'i is true, some statutes of the laws 
Of hunting — for the sagest youth is frail ; 

Bode o^er the hounds, it may be, now and then, 

And once o''er several countrv gentlemen. 

XXXIV 

But on the whole, to general admiration 

He acquitted both himself and horse : the squires 

MarvelFd at merit of another nation ; 

The boors cried *^ Dang it ! who M have thought it ? '* 
Sires, 

The Nestors of the sporting generation. 

Swore praises, and recali'd their former fires ; 

The huntsman^s self relented to a grin. 

And rated him almost a whipper-in. 

XXXV 

Such were his trophies — not of spear and shield. 
But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes foxes^ brushes ; 

Yet I must own, — although in this I yield 
To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes, — 

He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield, 
W^ho, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes, 

And what not, though he rode beyond all price, 

Ask'd next day, ^' If men ever hunted twice ? '' 
[ 301 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 



XXXVI 



He also had a quality uncommon 

To early risers after a long cliase, 
Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon 

December's drowsy day to his dull race, — 
A quality agreeable to woman, 

When her soft, liquid words run on apace, 
Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner, — 
He did not fall asleep just after dinner ; 

XXXVII 

But, light and airy, stood on the alert. 
And shone in the best part of dialogue, 

By humouring always what they might assert, 
And listening to the topics most in vogue ; 

Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert ; 
And smiling but in secret — cunning rogue ! 

He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer ; — 

In short, there never was a better hearer. 

XXXVIII 

And then he danced ; — all foreigners excel 
The serious Angles in the eloquence 

Of pantomime ; — he danced, I say, right well, 
With emphasis, and also with good sense — 

A tiling in footing indispensable ; 

He danced without theatrical pretence, 

Not like a ballet-master in the van 

Of his driird nymphs, but like a gentleman. 
[ 302 f 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 
XXXIX 

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound. 
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure ; 

Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground. 
And rather held in than put forth his vigour ; 

And then he had an ear for music's sound, 
Which might defy a crotchet critic's rigour. 

Such classic pas — sans flaws — set off our hero. 

He glanced like a personified Bolero ; 

XL 

Or, like a flying Hour before Aurora, 
In Guido's famous fresco which alone 

Is worth a tour to Eome, although no more a 

Eemnant were there of the old world's sole throne. 

The " tout ensemble " of his movements wore a 
Grace of the soft ideal, seldom shown. 

And ne'er to be described ; for to the dolour 

Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour. 

XLI 

No marvel then he was a favourite ; 

A full-grown Cupid, very much admired ; 
A little spoilt, but by no means so quite ; 

At least he kept his vanity retired. 



[ 303 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

PEOM "DON JUAN/' CANTO XVI 
Conventional Society 

XCVI 

. . , Juan, when lie cast a glance 
On Adeline while playing her grand role. 

Which she went through as though it were a dance. 
Betraying only now and then her soul 

By a look scarce perceptibly askance 
(Of weariness or scorn), began to feel 
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real; 

XCVII 

So well she acted all and every part 

By turns — with that vivacious versatility. 

Which many people take for want of heart. 
They err — 't is merely what is call'd mobility, 

A thing of temperament and not of art, 

Though seeming so, from its supposed facility ; 

And false — though true ; for surely they 're sincerest 

Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest. 

XCVIII 

This makes your actors, artists, and romancers. 
Heroes sometimes, though seldom — sages never ; 

But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers, 
Little that 's great, but much of what is clever ; 

Most orators, but very few financiers. 

Though all Exchequer chancellors endeavour, 
[ 304 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours, 
And grow quite figurative with their figures. 

XCIX 
The poets of arithmetic are they 

Who, though they prove not two and two to be 
Five, as they might do in a modest way, 

Have plainly made it out that four are three. 
Judging by what they take, and what they pay. 

The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea, 
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves 
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives. 

C 
While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces, 

The fair Fitz-Fulke seem'd very much at ease ; 
Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces. 

Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize 
The ridicules of people in all places — 

That honey of your fashionable bees — 
And store it up for mischievous enjoyment ; 
And this at present was her kind employment. 

CI 

However, the day closed, as days must close ; 

The evening also waned — and coffee came. 
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose. 

And curtsying off, as curtsies country dame, 
Eetired : with most unfashionable bows 

Their docile esquires also did the same, 
20 [ 305 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

Delighted with their dinner and their host. 
But with the Lady Adeline the most. 

CII 
Some praised her beauty ; others her great grace ; 

The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity 
Was obvious in each feature of her face, 

Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity. 
Yes ; she was truly worthy her high place ! 

No one could ^wn^ her deserved prosperity. 
And then her dress — what beautiful simplicity 
Draperied her form with curious felicity ! 

cm 

Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their praises. 

By an impartial indemnification 
For all her past exertion and soft phrases. 

In a most edifying conversation. 
Which turnM upon their late guests^ miens and faces. 

And families, even to the last relation ; 
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses. 
And truculent distortion of their tresses. 

CIV 
True, she said little — ^t was the rest that broke 

Torth into universal epigram ; 
But then "'t was to the purpose what she spoke : 

Like Addison^s " faint praise,'"* so wont to damn. 
Her own but served to set off every joke. 

As music chimes in with a melodrame. 
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend ! 
I ask but this of mine, to — not defend. 
[ 306 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 



TO JOHN MURRAY^ 

Genoa, 10bj<= 25 , 1822. 
I HAD sent you back the Quarterli/, without perusal, 
having resolved to read iio more reviews, good, bad, or 
indifferent ; but " who can control his fate ? " Galignani, 
to whom my English studies are confined, has forwarded 
a copy of at least one-half of it, in his indefatigable Catch- 
penny weekly compilation ; and as, " like Honour, it came 
unlooked for," I have looked through it. I must say 
that, upon the wholey that is, the whole of the half which 
I have read (for the other half is to be the Segment of 
Gal/s next week's Circular), it is extremely handsome, 
and anything but unkind or unfair.^ As I take the good 
in good part, I must not, nor will not, quarrel with the 
bad : what tlie Writer says of Don Juan is harsh, but it 
is inevitable. He must follow, or at least not directly 
oppose, tlie opinion of a prevailing, and yet not very firmly 

1 Murray being no longer Byron's publisher, tbis is the last letter 
written to him during Byron's residence in Italy. His correspondence 
from Greece also was mainly with other friends or with business agents. 

2 The review of Byron's Dramas was written by Bishop Hcber — 
" Even the Mystery of Cain, wicked as it may be, is the work of a 
nobler and more daring wickedness than that which delights in insulting 
the miseries, and stimulating the evil passions, and casting a cold-blooded 
ridicule over all the lofty and generous feelings of our nature ; and it is 
better that Lord Byron should be a manichee, or a deist, — nay, we would 
almost say, if the thing were possible, it is better that he should be a 
moral and argumentative atheist, than the professed and systematic poet of 
seduction, adultery, and incest : the contemner of patriotism, the insulter 
of piety, the raker into every sink of vice and wretchedness to disgust and 
degrade and harden the hearts of his fellow-creatures." — (Quarterly Review, 
vol. xxvii. p. 477. 

[ 307 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

seated, party : a review may and will direct and " turn 
awry '' the Currents of opinion, but it must not directly 
oppose them. JDoii Juan will be known by and bye, for 
what it is intended, — a Satire on abuses of the present 
^states of Society, and not an eulogy of vice : it may be 
now and then voluptuous : I can't help that. Ariosto 
is worse ; Smollett (see Lord Strutwell in vol. 2^ of 
R\oderick'] B[a?idom']) ten times worse ; and Fielding no 
better. No Girl will ever be seduced by reading D. /. : — 
no, no; she will go to Little's poems and Eousseau's 
romans for that, or even to the immaculate De Stael : they 
will encourage her, and not the Don, who laughs at that, 
and — and — most other things. But never mind — 
Ca ira! 

And now to a less agreeable topic, of w\\\c\\ pars magna 
es — you Murray of Albemarle S^ and the other Murray 
of Bridge Street — " Arcades Ambo '' (" Murray s both ") 
"et cant-2iYe pares '^ : ye, I say, between you, are the Causes 
of the prosecution of John Hunt, Esq'f on account of the 
Vision} You, by sending him an incorrect copy, and the 
other, by his function. Egad, but H/s Counsel will lay 
it on you with a trowel for your tergiversifying as to the 
MSS., etc., whereby poor H. (and, for anything I know, 
myself — I am willing enough) is likely to be impounded. 

Now, do you see what you and your friends do by 
your injudicious rudeness? — actually cement a sort of 

1 JoliQ Hu-nt, prosecuted and convicted for publishing The Vision of 
Judgment, was ordered to pay a fine of £100 and to find sureties, and, in 
default, to be imprisoned in the custody of the Marshal of the Marshalsea. 
The fine was paid, and the sureties provided. 

[ 308 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

connection whicli you strove to prevent, and wliich, had 
the ll.^s p?'osj)ered, would not in all probability have con- 
tinued. As it is, I will not quit them in their adversity, 
though it should cost me character, fame, money, and the 
usual et cetera. 

My original motives I already explained (in the letter 
Avhich you thought proper to show) : they are the true 
ones, and I abide by them, as I tell you, and I told 
\a. H' when he questioned me on the subject of that 
letter. He was violently hurt, and never will forgive me 
at bottom ; but I can^t help that. I never meant to 
make a parade of it ; but if he chose to question me, I 
could only answer the plain truth : and I confess I did 
not see anything hi the letter to hurt him, unless I said 
he was a " hove'' which I don't remember. Had their 
Journal ^ gone on well, and I could have aided to make it 
better for them, I should then have left them, after my 
safe pilotage off a lee shore, to make a prosperous voyage 
by themselves. As it is, I can't, and would not, if I 
could, leave them amidst the breakers. 

As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, 
between L. H. and me, there is little or none : we meet 
rarely, hardly ever ; but I think him a good -principled 
and able man, and must do as I would be done by. 
I do not know what world he has lived in, but I have 
lived in three or four ; and none of thein like his Keats 
and Kangaroo terra incognita. Alas ! poor Shelley ! how 

1 The Liberal, fostered by Byron aud Shelley, edited by Leigh Hunt, 
and published by John Hunt, was abandoned after the publication of 
four numbers. 

[ 309 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

we would have laughed liad he lived,, and how we used to 
laugh now and then, at various things which are grave in 
the Suburbs ! 

You are all mistaken about Shelley. You do not 
know how mild, how tolerant, how good he was in 
Society; and as perfect a Gentleman as ever crossed a 
drawing-room, when he liked, and where he liked. 

I have some thoughts of taking a run down to Naples 
{solus, or, at most, cum sola) this spring, and writing, 
when I have studied the Country, a fifth and sixth Canto 
of Cht Harolde : but this is merely an idea for the present, 
and I have other excursions and voyages in my mind. 
The busts are finished : are you worthy of them ? 

Yours, etc., 

N. B. 

P. S. — Mrs. Shelley is residing with the Hunts at 
some distance from me : I see them very seldom, and 
generally on account of their business. Mrs. S., I believe, 
will go to England in the Spring.^ 

Count Gamba's family, the father and Son and 
daughter, are residing with me by Mr. Hiirs^ (the 
minister's) recommendation, as a safer asylum from the 
political persecutions than they could have in another 
residence ; but they occupy one part of a large house, and 
I the other, and our establishments are quite separate. 

Since I have read the Q\_iiarterl7/\ I shall erase two or 
three passages in the latter 6 or 7 Cantos, in which I had 

1 Mrs. Shelley left Genoa for London, July 25, 1823. 

2 William Noel-HiU (1773-1842), British Envoy to the Court of 
Sardinia (1807-24). 

[ 310 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

lightly stroked over two or three of your authors ; but I 
will not return evil for good. I liked what I read of the 
article much. 

Mr. J. Hunt is most likely the publisher of the new 
Cantos; with what prospects of success I know not, nor 
does it very much matter, as far as I am concerned ; but 
I hope that it may be of use to him, for he is a stiff 
sturdy, conscientious man, and I like him : he is such a 
one as Prynne or Pym might be. I bear you no ill will 
for declining the B. J's,y but I cannot commend your 
conduct to the H.'s. . . . 



TO JOHN HUNT 

Genoa, Mch. 10th, 1823. 
Sir, — I do not know what Mr. Kinnaird intended by 
desiring the stoppage of The Liberal, which is no more 
in his power than in mine. The utmost that Mr. K. 
(who must have misunderstood me) should have done, 
was to state, what I mentioned to your brother, that, my 
assistance neither appearing essential to the publication 
nor advantageous to you or your brother, and at the same 
time exciting great disapprobation amongst my friends 
and connections in England, I craved permission to with- 
draw. What is stranger is that Mr. Kd. could not have 
received my letter to this effect till long after the date 
of your letter to your brother this day received. The 
Pulci is at your service for the third number, if you think 
it worth the insertion. With regard to other publications, 
I know not what to think or to say ; for the work^ even 
[ 311 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

by your own account, is unsuccessful, and I am not at all 
sure that this failure does not spring much more from me 
than any other connection of the work. I am at this 
moment the most unpopular man in England, and if a 
whistle would call me to the pinnacle of English fame, I 
would not utter it. All this, however, is no reason why 
I should involve others in similar odium, and I have 
some reason to believe that The Liberal would have more 
success without my intervention. However this may be, 
I am willing to do anything I can for your brother or 
any member of his family, and have the honour to be 
Your very obed'. humble st. 

N. B. 

P. S. — I have to add that no secession will take place 
on my part from The Liberal without serious consid- 
eration with your brother. The poems which I have 
desired to be published separately, required this for obvious 
reasons of the subject, etc., and also that their publication 
should be immediate. 

TO JOHN HUNT 

Genoa, Mch. 17*'? 1823. 
Sir, — Your brother will have forwarded by the post 
a corrected proof of The Blues for some ensuing number of 
the Journal ; but I should think that yf Pulci translation 
had better be preferred for the immediate number, as 
The Blues will only tend further to indispose a portion 
of your readers. 

I still retain my opinion that my connection with the 
[ 312 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

work will tend to anything but its success. Such I 
thought from the first, when I suggested that it would 
have been better to have made a kind of literary appen- 
dix to the Examiner ; the other expedient was hazardous, 
and has failed hitherto accordingly; and it appears that 
the two pieces of my contribution have precipitated that 
failure more than any other. It was a pity to print such 
a quantity, especially as you might have been aware of my 
general unpopularity, and the universal run of .the period 
against my productions, since the publication of Mr. 
Murray's last volume. My talent (if I have any) does 
not lie in the kinds of composition which is {sic) most 
acceptable to periodical readers. By this time you are 
probably convinced of this fact. The Journal, if contin- 
ued (as I see no reason why it should not be), will find 
much more efficacious assistance in the present and other 
contributors than in myself. Perhaps also, you should, 
for the present, reduce the number printed to two thou- 
sand, and raise it gradually if necessary. It is not so 
much against you as against me that the hatred is directed ; 
and, I confess, I would rather withstand it alone, and 
grapple with it as I may. Mr. Murray, partly from 
pique, for he is a Mortal — mortal as his publications, 
though a bookseller — has done more harm than you are 
fully aware of, or I either; and you will perceive this 
probably on my first separate publication, no less than in 
those connected with The Liberal. He has the Clergy, 
and the Government, and the public with him ; I do not 
much embarrass myself about them when alone; but I do 
not wish to drag others down also. I take this to be the 
[ 313 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

fact, for I do not recollect that so much odium was 
directed against your family and friends, till your brother, 
unfortunately for himself, came in literary contact with 
myself. I will not, however, quit The Liberal without 
mature consideration, though I feel persuaded that it 
would be for your advantage that I should do so. Time 
and Truth may probably do away this hostility, or, at 
least, its effect; but, in the interim, you are the sufferer. 
Every publication of mine has latterly failed ; 1 am not 
discouraged by this, because writing and composition are 
habits of my mind, with which Success and Publication 
are objects of remoter reference — not causes but effects j 
like those of any other pursuit. I have had enough both 
of praise and abuse to deprive them of their novelty, but 
I continue to compose for the same reason that I ride, 
or read, or bathe, or travel — it is a habit. 

I want sadly Peveril of the Peak, which has not yet 
arrived here, and I will thank you much for a copy ; I 
shall direct Mr. Kinnaird to reimburse you for the price. 
It will be useless to forward The Liberal, the insertion 
of which will only prevent the arrival of any other books 
in the same parcel. That work is strictly prohibited, and 
the packet which came by sea was extracted with the 
greatest difficulty. Never send by sea, it is a loss of four 
months ; by land, a fortnight is sufficient. 

Yours ever, 

N.B. 



[ 314 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

TO MRS. [ ? SHELLEY] 

[Undated.] 

I presume that you, at least, know enough of me to 
be sure that I could have no intention to insult Hunt's 
poverty. On the contrary, I honour hiin for it; for I 
know what it is, having been as much embarrassed as 
ever he was, without perceiving aught in it to diminish 
an honourable man^s self-respect. If you mean to say 
that, had he been a wealthy man, I would have joined in 
this Journal, I answer in the negative. ... I engaged 
in the Journal from good-will towards him, added to 
respect for his character, literary and personal; and no 
less for his political courage, as well as regret for his 
present circumstances : I did this in the hope that he 
might, with the same aid from literary friends of literary 
contributions (which is requisite for all journals of a mixed 
nature), render himself independent. 

I have always treated him, in our personal intercourse, 
with such scrupulous delicacy, that I have forborne 
intruding advice which I thought might be disagreeable, 
lest he should impute it to what is called " taking 
advantage of a man''s situation." 

As to friendship, it is a propensity in which my genius 
is very limited. I do not know the male human being, 
except Lord Clare, the friend of my infancy, for whom I 
feel any thing that deserves the name. All my others 
are men-of-the-world friendships. I did not even feel it 
[ 315 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

for Shelley, however much I admired and esteemed him; 
so that JO a see not even vanity could bribe me into it, for, 
of all men, Shelley thought highest of my talents, — and, 
perhaps, of my disposition. 

I will do my duty by my intimates, upon the principle 
of doing as you would be done by. I have done so, I 
trust, in most instances. I may be pleased with their 
conversation — rejoice in their success — be glad to do 
them service, or to receive their counsel and assistance 
in return. But as for friends and friendship, I have (as I 
already said) named the only remaining male for whom 
I feel any thing of the kind, excepting, perhaps, Thomas 
Moore. I have had, and may have still, a thousand 
friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one's 
partners in the waltz of this world — not much remem- 
bered when the ball is over, though very pleasant for the 
time. Habit, business, and companionship in pleasure or 
in pain, are links of a similar kind, and the same faith in 
politics is another. . . . 

TO J.J. COULMANNi 

Genoa, July 12 (?), 1823. 
My deau Sir, — Your letter, and what accompanied it, 
have given me the greatest pleasure. The glory and the 
works of the wTiters who have deigned to give me these 
volumes, bearing their names, were not unknown to me, 
but still it is more flattering to receive them from the 

^ A French writer who had sought and received an interview with 
Byrou a few months earlier. 

[ 316 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

authors themselves. I beg you to present my thanks to 
each of them in particukr; and to add, how proud I am 
of their good opinion, and how charmed I shall be to 
cultivate their acquaintance, if ever the occasion should 
occur. The productions of M. Jouy have long been 
familiar to me. Who has not read and applauded The 
Hermit and Scylla? But I cannot accept what it has 
pleased your friends to call tlieir homage, because there is 
no sovereign in the republic of letters ; and even if there 
were, I have never had the pretension or the power to 
become a usurper. 

I have also to return you thanks for having honoured 
me with your own compositions ; I thought you too 
young, and probably too amiable, to be an author. As to 
the Essay, etc., I am obliged to you for the present, al- 
though I had already seen it joined to the last edition of 
the translation.^ I have nothing to object to it, with 
regard to what concerns myself personally, though natu- 
rally there are some of the facts in it discoloured, and 
several errors into wdiich the author has been led by the 
accounts of others. I allude to facts, and not criticisms. 
But the same author has cruelly calumniated my father 
and my grand-uncle, but more especially tlie former. So 
far from being " brutal,"*^ he was, according to the testi- 
mony of all those who knew him, of an extremely amiable 
and {enjouc) jojoiis character, but careless {insouciant) 
and dissipated. He had, consequently, the reputation of 
a good officer, and showed himself such in the Guards, in 

^ The " Essai " speaking of Captain Byron and Lady CarmavtLen, saj^s, 
" Lcs vices du capitaiue et sa brutalite la lireut mourir de douleur." 

[ 317 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

America. The facts themselves refute the assertion. It 
is not bj '' brutality " that a young Officer in the Guards 
seduces and carries off a Marchioness, and marries two 
heiresses. It is true that he was a very handsome man, 
which goes a great way. His first wife (Lady Conyers 
and Marchioness of Carmarthen) did not die of grief, but 
of a malady which she caught by having imjjrudently in- 
sisted upon accompanying my father to a hunt, before she 
was completely recovered from the accouchement which 
gave birth to my sister Augusta. 

His second wife, my respected mother, had, I assure 
you, too proud a spirit to bear the ill-usage of any man, 
no matter who he might be ; and this she would have 
soon proved. I should add, that he lived a long time in 
Paris, and was in habits of intimacy with the old Marshal 
Biron, Commandant of the French Guards ; who, from 
the similitude of names, and Norman origin of our family, 
supposed tliat there was some distant relationship between 
us. He died some years before the age of forty, and 
whatever may have been his faults, they were certainly 
not those of harshness and grossness (durete et grossieretf). 
If the notice should reach England, I am certain that the 
passage relative to my father will give much more pain 
to my sister (the wife of Colonel Leigh, attached to the 
Court of the late Queen, 7wt Caroline, but Charlotte, wife 
of George III.), even than to me ; and this she does not 
deserve, for there is not a more angelic being upon earth. 
Augusta and I have always loved the memory of our 
father as much as we loved eacli other, and this at least 
forms a presumption that the stain of harshness was not 
[ 318 ] 



THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823 

applicable to it. If he dissipated his fortune, that con- 
cerns us alonC;, for we are his heirs ; and till we reproach 
him with it, I know no one else who has a right to do so. 
As to Lord Byron, who killed Mr. Chaworth in a duel, 
so far from retiring from the world, he made the tour of 
Europe, and was appointed Master of the Staghounds 
after that event, and did not give up society until his son 
had offended him by marrying in a manner contrary to 
his duty. So far from feeling any remorse for having 
killed Mr. Chaworth, who was a fire-eater (spadassui) , and 
celebrated for his quarrelsome disposition, he always kept 
the sword Avhich he used upon that occasion in his bed- 
chamber, where it still was lohen he died. It is singular 
enough, that when very young, I formed a strong attach- 
ment for the grand-niece and Iieiress of Mr. Chaworth, 
who stood in the same degree of relationship as myself 
to Lord Byron ; and at one time it was thought that the 
two families would have been united in us. She was two 
years older than me, and we were very much together in 
our youth. She married a man of an ancient and respect- 
able family; but her marriage was not a happier one 
than my own. Her conduct, however, was irreproachable, 
but there was no sympathy between their characters, and 
a separation took place. I had not seen her for many 
years. When an occasion offered, I was upon the point, 
with her consent, of paying her a visit, when my sister, 
who has always had more influence over me than anyone 
else, persuaded me not to do it. " For," said she, " if you 
go, you will fall in love again, and tlien there will be a 
scene j one step will lead to another, et celafera tm eclat/' 
[ 319 ] 



WITH BYRON IN ITALY 

etc. I was guided by these reasons, and shortly after I 
married ; with what success it is useless to say. Mrs. C. 
some time after, being separated from her husband, be- 
came insane ; but she has since recovered her reason, and 
is, I believe, reconciled to her husband. This is a long 
letter, and principally about my family, but it is the fault 
of M. Pichot, my benevolent biographer. He may say 
of me wliatever of good or evil pleases him, but I desire 
that he should speak of my relations only as they deserve. 
If you could find an occasion of making him, as well as 
M. Nodier, rectify the facts relative to my father, and 
publish them, you would do me a great service, for I 
cannot bear to have him unjustly spoken of. I must con- 
clude abruptly, for I have occupied you too long. Believe 
me to be very much honoured by your esteem, and always 
your obliged and obedient servant, 

Noel Byron. 

P. S. — The tenth or twelfth of this month I shall em- 
bark for Greece. Should I return, I shall pass through 
Paris, and shall be much flattered in meeting you and 
your friends. Should I not return, give me as afiectionate 
a place in your memory as possible. 



[ SW ] 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Adrian's Villa near TivoH, see illus- 
tration facing 218 

Alban Mount, 47, 106; see ilhistra- 
tions facing 48, 84 

Albaiio, Town and Lake, 47, lOG; 
see illustration facing 110 

Albavo, Byron's home at, 239; see 
illustration facing 312 

Altieri's Tomb (Santa Croce Church, 
Florence), 32, 71; see illustration 
facing 120 

Alps and Switzerland, 15, 78, 79; the 
scene of " Manfred," 12,15; traces 
of in the drama, 34-47 

American liberty, Byron's sympathy 
in, 4, 84, 134 

American ships and visitors, 251, 
254 

Apennines, The, 78 

Apollo Belvedere, 104, 105; see illus- 
tration facing 106 

Arch of fitiip, Rome, 90 

" Ariosto," by Titian, in the Manfrini 
Palace, Venice, 28 

Armenian language, Byron's study 
of the, 5 

Arqua, Petrarch's house and tomb at, 
67, 68, 73 ; see illustration facing 
66 

"Aurora" by Guido Keni (Palazzo 
Kospigliosi, Rome), 303; see illus- 
tration facing 304 

B.EDEKER, Herr Fritz, quoted, xvii 
Baillie, Joanna, 193 
Bancroft, George, 252 
" Beppo," Concerning, 111 
Beyle, Henri, concerning Byron, 5, 6 
Blaquiere, Captain, and the expedi- 
tion to Greece, 239 
Boccaccio's grave at Certaldo, 73 



Bologna, 50; letters from, 126, 136; 
cemetery of, 127 

Borghese Villa, Rome, see illustration 
facing 286 ' 

Bowles, W. L., 193 

Brenta River, 51, 66 

Bridge of Sighs, Venice, 7, 60 ; see 
iilustration facing 60 

Bronze Wolf, Rome, 83; see illustra- 
tion facing 82 

Burial-place of Byron, 239, 240 

Busts done of Byron, by various 
sculptors, 51,259 

Byron's Grotto, see illustration fac- 
'ing 296 

"Cain," Concerning, 192, 195, 196, 
235; dedication, 242 ; criticisms of, 
244-248, 250, 253, 297, 307 

Campanile, Venice, see illustration 
facing 2 

Campbell, Thomas, 193, 297 

Camuccini, Vincenzo ; his portrait of 
Byron, xx, xxi ; see illustration 
facing 234 

Canova's bust of Helen, 9, 10 ; Bj'ron's 
estimate of his place as an artist, 
58, 72, 118 

Capitoline Hill, Rome, 90; see illus- 
tration facing 90 

Caracalla, Baths of, Rome, see illus- 
tration facing 264 

Carbonari league, 184, 191, 194 

Chapel of New Sacristy of San Lor- 
enzo, Florence, 32, 74; see illustra- 
tion facing 32 

"Childe Harold," Concerning, xvii, 
4, 5, 54, 125, 158, 252, 310 

Clitumnus, The river, 49, 76 

Cohen, Byron's reph' to criticism of, 
136 



[ 323 ] 



INDEX 



Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 193, 298 

Coliseum of Rome, 40, 97, 99, 100; 
See illustrct lion facing 40 

Column of Phocas, Rome, 89; see il- 
lustration facing 88 

Columns of The Lion and St. Theo- 
dore, Venice, 7, 62; see frontis- 
piece 

Copyrights, Byron's, 6 

Cornwall, Barry, 194 

Coulmann, J. J., Letter to, 316 

Crabbe, George, 136 

Dante's tomb at Ravenna, 72, 73, 

157, 161, 102, 175; see illustration 

facintj 156 
Death of Byron, 239 
Diary, Byron's, 182 
Disraeli, Isaae, Letter to, 254 
Doges' Palace, Venice, 7, 00, 63; 

see frontispiece 
Domenichino, B^Ton's appreciation 

of, 127 
"Don Juan," Concerning, xviii, 

xix, 5, 122-125, 127, 135-139, 

179-181, 188, 190, 236, 239, 247,252, 

258, 297, 308, 310 
Dupuy, Villa, near Leghorn, 253, 254, 

250' 
"Dying Gladiator, The" ("The 

Dying Gaul "), 98; see illustration 

facing 98 

Edinburgh Review, 11, 13. 

Egeria, Grotto of, 91-93; see illus- 
tration facing 92 

" English Bards and Scotch Review- 
ers," Byron's desire concerning, 
111; promise that he will write 
another such, 193 

English travellers, 9, 14-17, 121, 195 

Eridanus River (The Po), 169 

Fki;rara, Byron's visit to, 4, 18, 19, 

127, 128 
Florence, 4, 18, 31, 70, 160, 174, 175; 

see illustrations facing 32, 68 
Foligno, 4; letter from, 31 



Forum, the Roman, 90; see illustra- 
tions facing 88, 270 

Foscolo, Ugo (Niccolo), 124, 125, 189 

"Francesca of Rimini," Concerning, 
176 

Frascati (Old Amphitheatre of Tus- 
culum), 48 ; see illustration facing 
48 

Frere, John Hookham, 111, 123 

Friuli, District of, 66 

Galignani, the critic of " Cain," 

253, 259, 307 
Galileo Galilei, Tomb of (Santa Croce 

Church, Florence), 32, 71 ; see- il- 

lustration facing 54 
Gamba family, 146, 152, 195, 238, 310 
Gandolfo, Castle, on Lake Albano, 

see illustration facing 110 
Genoa, Letters from, 307, 311, 312, 

316 
Gifford, Editor Quarterly Review, 

10-12, 16, 17, 30, 33, 50, 51, 55, 136, 

192, 246, 247 
Giorgione's pictures (Manfrini Pal- 
ace, Venice), 29, 113, 114 
Gondolas, Venetian, 115, 116 
Greece, Byron's expedition to, 239, 

320 
Guido Reni, 127 
Guiccioli, Count, 135, 138, 139, 145, 

151 
Guiccioli, Countess Teresa, 134, 145, 

146, 149-152, 155-157, 188, 194, 

258, 259 
Guiccioli, Palazzo, Ravenna, see il- 
lustration facing 150 

Hebek, Bishop, critic of *' Cain," 307 
Hill, William Noel-, 310 
Hobhouse, John, 5, 10, 11, 51, 54; 

dedication of " Childe Harold," 

Canto IV, to, 56-60; 123, 126, 153, 

189, 191, 246 
Hoppner, Richard, Consul at Venice, 

16; letter to, 152 
Horace, Comments on, 18, 79, 80, 

261 



[ 324* ] 



INDEX 



Horses of St. Mark's, 7, 62; see illus- 
tration facing 62 

Hunt, John, 50, 51, 2;]6, 237, 308, 
311; letters to, 311, 312 

Hunt, Leigh, 18, 148, 237, 256, 258, 
309, 314, 315 

Ikvixg's works, Byron's admiration 
for, 186 

Jekfkky, Editor Edinburgh Review, 

11, 14, 235, 253, 256 
Journal, Byron's, 15 

Keats, John, 298 

Kinnaird, Mr., 33, 123, 135, 136, 311 

Lady Byron, Separation from, 14, 

16 
Lago di Garda, 8 
"Lalla Rookh," Thomas Moore, 13, 

17, 48, 51, 52, 55 
"Lament of Tasso," Concerning, 4, 

33 
Landor, "Walter Savage, xv, 298 
Lanfranchi Palace, Byron's home in 

Pisa, 241, 242 
Laocoon Group, 104 ; see illustration 

facing 96 
Leigh, Lady Augusta, Byron's sister, 

11, 15, 31, 48, 318, 319' 
*' Letters written by an Englishman 

resident at Paris during the last 

reign of Napoleon," by John 

Hobhouse, 10 
Liberal, The, 148, 185, 186, 188, 236, 

237, 257, 258, 309, 311-314 
Lido, Venice, 121, 199 
Life of Lord Byron, written by him- 
self, 140, 255 
Lion of St. Mark's, 7, 62, 129; see 

frontisjjiece and illustration facing 

62 
" Love laughs at Locksmiths," George 

Colman the Younger, quoted, 50 



"Manfred," Concerning, 4, 11, 12, 
15, 17, 30-33, 112, 253 

Manfrini Palace, Venice, Paintings 
in the, 28, 29, 113 

"Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice," 
Concerning, 3, 4, 12, 13, 179, 297 

"Mazeppa," Concerning, 5, 176 

Medici Chapel, Florence, 32, 74; see 
illustration facing 32 

Medici Gallery (UfBzi) paintings, 32 

Med win, Thomas, 238 

Michael Angelo's Tomb (Santa Croce 
Church, Florence), 32, 71; his 
paintnig of " The La'^t Judgment " 
and statue of Moses, 172; his treat- 
ment by the popes, 173; see illus- 
trations facing Z2, 124, 128,172, 180 

Milman, Ilenry H., 194 

Mocenigo, Palazzo, Venice, Byron's 
residence, 121 

Montenero, near Leghorn, Letters 
from, 251, 253, 254, 256 

Moore, Thomas, 5, 16, 55, 119, 123, 
141, 181, 193, 194, 297, 316; letters 
to, 13, 14, 17, 52, 151, 182, 185, 186, 
194, 248, 253, 256, 258 

"Morgante ^laggiore," Concerning 
Byron's translation of, xviii, 153, 
180, 193 

Moses, Statue of, designed by Michael 
Angeio, 172; see ihust ration facing 
180 

Murray, John, 52, 195, 235, 236, 255, 
313; letters to, 8, 10, 12, 15, 28, 30, 
31, 32, 47, 49, 54, 111, 122, 124, 126, 
134, 136, 139, 153, 176, 178, 179, 
188, 189, 190, 192, 241, 244, 250, 
251, 257, 307 



Machiavelli's Tomb (Santa Croce 
Church, Florence), 32, 71; see illus- 
tration facing 116 

[ ^-5 ] 



Nemi, Lake, 
facing 108 



105; 



illustration 



see illus- 



Palatine Hill, Rome, 

tration facing 128 
Pantheon, Rome, 100, 101, 172; see 

illustration f icing 100 
Passignano Castle, on Lake Trasi- 

meno, 74; see illustration facing 

72 



INDEX 



Pay received by Byron for his writ- 
ings, 6, 7, 17*, 33 

Tetrarch's house and tomb at Arqua, 
67, 68, 72; see illustration facing 
66 

Pindemonte, Ippolito, 49, 50 

Pineta, near Ravenna, 135,289; see 
illustration facing 1 42 

Pisa, Byron's residence at, 238, 240, 
241; 'letters from, 241, 244, 248, 
250,256-258; see illustration fac- 
ing 242 

Pitti Palace paintings, 32; see illustra- 
tion facing 128 

Po, The river, 149, 169 

Porto Venere in Gulf of Spezia, see 
illustration facing 296 

Portraits of Byron, xx,25l, 252, 254, 
259; see illustrations facing 234, 
252 

Prison across " The Bridge of Sighs " 
7, 60; see illustration facing GO 

'•Prophecy of Dante," Concerning, 
140, 156*, 176, 238 

Pulci, and Byron's translation of 
"Morgante Maggiore," xviii, 153, 
180, 193, 312 

Quarterly Review, 307, 310 

Ravenna, 18, 73, 145, 175; letters 
from, 134, 152, 153, 157, 176, 178, 
179, 182, 185, 186, 188, 190, 192, 
194; see illustrations facing 142, 
150, 156 

Religious belief of Byron, 248 

*' Kemarks on Antiquities, Arts, and 
Letters during an Excursion in 
Italy iti 1802 and 1803," by Joseph 
Forsyth, 49 

Reni, Guido, "Aurora," 303; see 
illustration facing 304 

Rhffitian Alps, 66 

Rialto, The> 202; see illustration 
facing 64 

Rimini, 18 

Rogers, Samuel, 119 

Rome, Byron's visits to, 4, 18, 33, 
47-49 ; " letters from, 32, 47 ; in 
"Childe Harold," 80; iu "Proph- 



ecy of Dante," 167, 168; see illus- 
trations facing 18, 24, 40, 80, 82, 
88, 90, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102, 104, 
106, 128, 136, 172, 180, 264, 276, 
286, 304 

St, John and St. Paul, Church 

of, Venice, 197, 198; set illustration 
facing 198 
St. Mark's, Venice, 7, 8, 62; see 

illustrations facing 2, 62 
St. Peter's, Rome, 101-103; see illus- 
trations facing 102, 104 
San Giovanni e San Paolo, Church 

of, and space before, Venice, 197 
Santa Croce church, Florence, 32, 

71, 73; see illustrations facing 54, 

68, 116, 120, 124 
" Sardanapalus," Concerning, 189 
Scipios, Tomb of the, Rome, 81 
Scott, Sir Walter, 16, 119, 151, 180, 

181, 193; letters to, 242, 297 ,^ 
Shelley, j^-X', 5, 147, 1^8, 236-238, 

248,' 257-259, 309, 3£0; letter to 
, Mrs- Shelley, 315 
Society, Italian, 154-156 
Soracte, Mount, 79; see illustration 

facing 86 
Southey, Robert, 180, 193, 242, 247, 

279, 286, 297 
Spezia, Gulf of, see illustration facing 

298 
Stage, Byron's contempt for the, 12 



Taafe, 



238 



Tarpeian Rock, Rome, 90; see illus- 
tration facing 94 
Tasso's cell, Hospital of St. Anna, 

Ferrara, 4, 18, 19 
Tasso's oak, see illustration facing 24 
Temple of Clitumnus, 76; see illus- 
tration facing 76 
Terni, Tlie Fall of, 18, 49, 77, 78; 

see illustration facing 78 
"The Age of Bronze," Concerning, 

239 
"The Blues," C(mcerning, 312 
"The Island," Concerning, 239 
"The Last Judgment," Michael 



[ 328 ] 



INDEX 



Angelo, 172 ; see illustration facing 
172 
" The Story of Rimini," Leigh Hunt, 

18 

" The Two Foscari," Concerniag, 4, 
187, 189, 2-t2, 217 

Thorwaldsen's bust of Byron, 51 

Titian's *' Venus," Florence, 32, 113 

Tomb of Cecilia Metella, on the Ap- 
pian Way, 85 ; see illustration fac- 
ing 81 

Toscanelli, Palazzo, Pisa, 241, 242 ; 
see illustration facing 242 

Trajan's Column, Rome, 90; see il- 
lustration facing 136 

Trasimeno, Lake, 74, 75; see illus- 
trations facing 72, 74 

Trelawuey, Edward J., 238 

Vatican Gallery, Rome, 104; see 
illustrations facing 96, 106 

Venetian dialect, 9, 117 

Venice. 3, 9, 15, 28, 121 ; letters from, 
8, lo', 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 28, 30, 49, 
52, 56,111, 121, 122, 124, 139; in 
" Childe Harold," 60 ; in " Beppo," 
112 ; in " Ode on Venice," 129 ; in 



"Marino Faliero," 197; in **The 
Two Foscari," 203; see frontispiece 
and illustrations facing 2, 60, 62, 

64, iy8 

" Venice " — a Fragment, Concerning 
the publication of, 3, 8 

"Venus," Titian, 32, 113 

Venus de' Medici (Ulfizi Gallery), 18, 
31, 70 ; see illustration facing 70 

Verona, 8; see illustration facing 8 

"Vicar of Wakefield," Byron's ad- 
miration for, 183 

"View of Italy " (Dr. Moore), 3, 12 

"Vision of Dante" see "Prophecy 
of Dante " 

"Vision of Judgment," 236, 257, 
308 

Webster, James Wedderburn, 121 
West, William Edward, 238, 259; 

see illustration facing 252 
Whistlecraft, Mr. (John Hookham 

Frere), 111, 153 
Williams, Edward, 238, 257, 258 
Williams, Jane, 238 
Wordsworth, William, 180, 193, 235, 

286. 298 



[ 327 ] 



PRINTED FOR A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
BY THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. MCMVI 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 

WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Edited by Anna Benneson McMahan 

A Selection of the Poems and Letters of PERCY BYSSHE 
SHELLEY which have to do with his life in Italy from 18 IS to 1822 

IT is impossible to think of Shelley without associating 
him with Italy. It was during the Italian period of 
his life that his genius matured, and it was the atmos- 
phere and surroundings of that country which inspired him 
to produce such masterpieces as " Prometheus Unbound/' 
" Ode to the West Wind/' and "The Cenci." W^e find the 
whole spirit of Italian atmosphere in Shelley's poetry. The 
beauty and charm of Italy, her buildings, her country, and 
her associations, pervade some of his most exquisite verse. 
And it is not only in his verse that Shelley has celebrated 
Italy, but also in his descriptions which have been handed 
down to us in the shape of letters. It has been the editor's 
aim in this volume to present the poems in their original 
environment, and to conduct the reader into that very 
atmosphere where they were created. 

" The book contains more than sixty beautifully printed full-page views of scenery 
and art remains from Leghorn to Pompeii, and from Home to Ravenna. To the 
traveller who plans visiting Italy the book will prove very helpful in furnishing in 
advance an interest of a literary character in objects and places that, otherwise, 
might be only historical. To those who have already been over the ground it will 
no doubt prove even more interesting and valuable."— Boston Evening Transcript. 
With over sixty full-page illustrations 
from photographs. 12rao. $1.40 net. 
Large-paper edition on special Italian hand-made paper ; illustra- 
tions in photogravure brown on Japan vellum. 

Bound in half vellum, boxed, $3.75 net. The same, full vellum, 
$5.00 net. The .tame, half calf or half morocco, $7.50 net. The 
same, bound in Florence, full vellum, Florentine embellishments, 
$10.00 net. 



A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, Chicago 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 

FLORENCE IN THE 
POETRY OF THE BROWNINGS 

Edited by Anna Benneson McMahan 

A Selection of the Poems of ROBERT and ELIZABETH 

BARRETT BROWNING, which have to do ivith the 

History, the Scenery, and the Art of Florence 

THIS beautiful example of bookmaking offers its 
appeal to lovers of Florence, to lovers of art, and 
to lovers of Browning. The first will be ready to 
admit that never has the wonderful city been so glorified 
as in the more famous Browning poems; the second will 
be glad to have such a representative collection of fine 
reproductions of both painting and sculpture ; and the 
Browning lovers will appreciate so appropriately illus- 
trated a selection which includes "Casa Guidi Windows,"" 
"The Dance," "The Statue and the Bust," Book I. of 
" The Ring and the Book," and several others. 

"To let the eye and imagination stray through these pictured pages is tanta- 
mount to a veritable revisitatiou. It is indeed a treasure trove." — The Critic, 

With sixty-five full-page illustrations 
from photographs. 12mo. $1.40 ?ieL 

Large-paper edition on special Italian hand-made paper ; 
illustrations in photogravure brown on Japan vellum. 

Bound in half vellum, boxed, $3.75 net. The same, full vellum, 
$5.00 net. The same, half calf or half morocco, $7.50 net. The same, 
hound in Florence, full vellum, Florentine emhelUshments, $10.00 net. 

A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers, Chicago 



BOOKS ON ITALIAN SUBJECTS 

HISTORY OF VENICE 

By POMPEO MOLMENTI 

Translated from the Italian hy HORATIO F. BROWN, British 
Archivist in Venice and author of '■^ In and Around Venice,'''' etc. 

THIS imposing work will be in every respect a 
monumental piece of bookmaking. The " His- 
tory" is now appearing in Italy, under the 
imprint of the Istituto Italiano (TArti Grajichi. The 
author is a gentleman of high social standing and tlie 
leading historical writer in Italy at the present time. 
The translator is himself an authority on Venice, whose 
books on that city, and the distinguished position he 
has held there for nearly twenty years as British 
Archivist, have won for him the reputation of knowing 
more about Venice than any other living Englishman. 
The volumes will be distinguished typograpliically by 
being printed in the beautiful Italian type cut by 
Bodoni, which was so famous a century ago, and has 
recently been revived by The University Press. 

Part I. Venice in the Middle Ages, two volumes, 

ready Fall of 1906. 
Part II. Venice in the Golden Age, two volumes, 

ready Spring of 1907. 
Part III. The Decadence of Venice, two volumes, 

ready Fall of 1907. 

^rx volumes, 8vo, with about 250 illustrations, each volume with 
frontispiece in colors and gold. 

A. C. McCLURG k CO., Publishers, Chicago 



BOOKS ON ITALIAN SUBJECTS 

A New Historically Illustrated Edition of 

R O M O L A 

By George Eliot 

Edited with Introduction and Notes by Dr. Guido Biagi, Librarian 
of the Laurentian Library^ Florence. 

THIS edition of the great classic will undoubtedly sur- 
pass in interest all others now available. Dr. Biagi, 
one of the most distinguished scholars in Ital}?^, has devoted 
the past two years to the selection of the illustrations^ 
which present the historical background in a manner 
never before attempted. 

With 160 illustrations, 2 volumes, 
12mo, in slip case, $3.00 net. 
Large-paper edition on Italian hand-made paper; illustra- 
tions on Japan paper. Bound with vellum back, $7.50 net; 
same in full vellum, $10.00 net. 

THE GUILDS OF FLORENCE 

Historical, Industrial, and Political 
By Edgcumbe St ale y 

THE cumulative energies of the Florentines had their focus in 
the corporate life of the trade associations, and in no other 
community was the guikl system so thoroughly developed as it 
was in Florence. A complete and connected history of the guilds 
has never been compiled, and the intention of the present work is 
to supply the omission. The author has exhausted the various 
sources of information, and it is believed that he has left nothing 
unsaid. The illustrative feature is worthy of comment, as the 
eiforts made to have the pictures as mnnerous and useful as possible 
have resulted in a wonderful collection. In every way this is a 
most impi-essivc volume. 

With many illustrations. Tall royal Sro, $5.00 net. 

A. C. McCLURG c^ CO., Publishers, Chicago 



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